4||iiii ma S ^E 9AHVHei K«r.»- jj;^*^-X ^ f-n L^ ' (i ^ — i BHII^H ^4^^^ i-'^ ^ ^(ZM "^ 4fsLj^ *^,»¥^: i^ ^ LIFE AND LETTERS OF HOEACE BTJSHNELL NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS FRANKLIN SQUARE 1880 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by Mary Bushxell Cheney, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. T2.60 " There are some of all ages — a lioly few — icliose lives have leen preserved to us in, writing and tradition^ and who thus live among tis still as hioion causes, who are not silent^ ichose names and worTcs and Christian characters are even freshened and made more vigorous ty the lapse of time. God has saved these elect men to us hj means of icritten language, that we may ever have them with us, and looTc to them as our lights of love and truth. They icere God's experimenters, I may say, in all their strtiggles and trials and worl's, and so God's icitnesses ; and therefore it is exj^ected that tec shall go naturally to them for help and life -direction, as one tcho icould open a mine icill seize upon tlie instructive suggestions of an experienced miner. They were the true miners of faith, and ice may go to them to he told where the treasures of faith do lie, and how they may he opened.'''' HORACE BUSHNELL. C > r^ /T^ d c Rev. Dr. E. P. Parker, of Hartford. This period was one of great mental activity with Dr. Bushnell, and of influence extended in various ways, — patri- otically for our country during the eventful days of the war, and personally and socially among many men of many minds — in the truest sense, therefore, a " ministry at large." It is for this reason a subject for gratitude with us that, without the aid of much correspondence and with little of outward incident, the deep significance and interest of this important time has been made to appear. Dr. Parker's narrative closes with the account of a farewell scene in a ministerial meeting, and brings the history down to about 1S71. The remaining years of decline, when Dr. Bushnell's life was more and more circumscribed as regards the outside world, and when he was seen and watched by those of his own household more than by any other friends, are portrayed by his daughter. Miss F. L. Bushnell, who has also assisted rae in the preparation of material and in many other ways. Her narration closes the story. Maey Bushnell Chen^et. CONTENTS. PAGE A Fragment of Autobiography found Dimly Pencilled on a Stray Sheet of Paper 1 CHAPTER I. 1S02-1S23. Early Life at Home 3 CHAPTER 11. Sketches of his Grandmother and Mother (Written by Dr. Bush- NELL IN ISli AT HIE REQUEST OF FrIENDS) 24 CHAPTER HI. 1S23-1S27. At Yale College 35 CHAPTER IV. 1S27-1S32. School -TEACHING. — Editorship. — Study of Laav. — Tutorship. — Law Studies again. — Renewal of Religious Life. — Theological School 47 CHAPTER V. 1S33-1S3T. Settlement in Hartford. — Marriage.— Duties and Difficulties. — Preaching. — The Subject of Slavery. — The Subject of Re- vivals 67 CHAPTER YI. 1S3T-1S40. Loss of his Baby Lily. — Summer Vacation at Long Island. — Loss OF HIS Mother. — Birth of his Son. — Address at Andover and First Heresy. — Deacon Seth Terry. — American Politics. — Call to the Presidency of Middleburt College 85 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. lS41-lSi5. PAGE Degree of D.D.— Second Coming.— Lectdre at Hudson.— Death of HIS Son.— Protestant League.— CATHOLicus.—roBLiSHED Articles AND Addresses. — Letters. — Ill-health 98 CIIx\PTER VIII. Journey in Europe H-^ CHAPTEPt IX. 1846-184S. Coming Home.— Letter to the Pope.— Christian Alliance.— Cor- respondence.— Christian Nurture, and Argument for the Sa3ie. — Dr. Bacon's Criticism. — Hartford Water -works. — Barbarism the First Danger. — Sketch of Dr. Bushnell, by Dr. Bartol. — Letter to a Child 1"! CHAPTER X. 184S-1S49. Religious Experience. — Address at Cambridge Divinity School. — Address at Harvard. — Address at Yale. — Address at Andover. — The Book, "God in Christ." — Dissertation on Language. — Ef- fects of his Views of Language upon his Written Style '191 CHAPTER XL '1S48-1850. Letters to Dr. Bartol. — Publication of "God in Christ." — Re- views.— Letters. — C. C, or Criticus Criticorum. — Defence be- fore the Hartford Central Association. — Letters again 211 CHAPTER XII. 1850-1851. "Fairfield West." — Meeting of the General Association at Litch- field.— Reminiscences of Dr. Busiinell's Bearing there. — Fish- ing Excursions. — Interview with an Opponent. — Letter from Dr. Porter. — Fairfield West again. — "Christ in Theology." — Dr. Bacon Quoted. — Letters. — Litchfield Address and Speech for Connecticut. — A Journey. — Letters. — Exclusion from Inter- course WITH Brother Ministers. — Dr. Haaves. — Dr. Bushnell's Manners in Controversy 234 CHAPTER XIII. 1S52. Lectures on the Supernatural. — Meeting of General Association at Danbury. — North Church withdraws from Consociation. — Address on Religious Music. — Ill-health. — Western Journey... 257 CONTKNTS. . ix CHAPTER XIV. 1S53. PAGE Review of Dk. Bushnell's Pastorate 279 CHAPTER XV. 1S53. Letters of Eeminiscences by Bishop Clark. — Address for Com- mon Schools. — Letters. — Controversy. — Letters. — The Hart- ford Park. — Other Public Matters. — Estisiate of Dr. Bcshnell AS a Citizen 291 ■ CHAPTER XVI. 1S54. Private Letters. — Correspondence with Dr. Hawes. — Public Basis OF Agreement. — Dr. Bushnell's Position Questioned. — Interpre- tation BY Dr. Phelps. — Last Gun of the Controversy 322 CHAPTER XVII. 1S55. Letters from New York, Cuba, Savannah, Charleston, and Hart- ford 347 CHAPTER XVIII. 1856. California 3G5 CHAPTER XIX. 1S57-185S. Return from California. — Sermon of Reunion. — Week-day' Sermon TO Business Men. — Thanksgiving. — Revival of 1857, '8. — Over- work.— Letter from the North Church and Reply. — Choice of a Colleague. — Publication of "Sermons for the New Life." — Publication of "Nature and the Supernatural." — Exhaustion.. 40G CHAPTER XX. 1S59-1S60. Leaving Hartford. — Minnesota „ 423 CHAPTER XXI. ISCO-lSGl. Clifton Springs 439 CHAPTER XXII. Household Recollections 452 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIIL MINISTRY AT LARGE. Dr. Bcshxell's Patriotism and Hopefulness during the War. — His Account of its Causes, and Interest in its Details. — Trib- ute TO Major Camp. — Vacations at New Preston. — Writing "The Vicarious Sacrifice." — Publication of Two Volumes. — Article on "Loyalty." — Letter of Consolation. — Escape from a Fatal Accident. — "Our Obligations to the Dead." — Visit to the Bat- tle-fields.— Publication of "Vicarious Sacrifice." — Address on "Pulpit Talent." — Worship and the Diaconate. — Letter to A Metaphysician. — Published Articles, especially' "Building Eras." — The Adirondacks. — Reminiscences by the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell. — "Our Gospel a Gift to the Imagination." — "Wom-I| AN Suffrage." — "God's Thoughts fit Bread for Children," — Preaching. — Work to obtain a Site for the State Capitol. — His Studies of the Outside World. — His Conversation at Meet- ings or Ministers. — The Monday- Evening Club. —Flashes of Wit. — His Farewell to the Brethren of the Association 470 CHAPTER XXIV. BY F. X.. B. CLOSING TEARS. 1S70-1ST6. Last Visit to New Preston. — A Deep Experience. — Revisions. — Extracts from a Correspondence. — First Summer in Ripton, with Letters. — Notes on Prayer. — Work under Limitations. — Second and Third Summers in Ripton, with Letters. — "A Vacation with Dr. Bushnell,"by Professor Austin Phelps. — His Manifold In- terests.— Vitality of his Humor. — Publication of " Forgiveness and Laav." — Letters concerning it. — Days of Peace. — A Neav Work begun. — A Severe Illness. — Partial Recovery. — Last Let- ters.— Gradual Decline. — Naming of the Park. — Death. — Ex- tracts FROM THE Funeral Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Burton 515 A FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BY HORACE BUSHNELL, FOUND DIMLY PENCILLED ON A STRAY SHEET OF PAPER. "GOD'S WAY WITH A SOUL. " I HAVE been told that my arrival or advent in tliis earthly sphere was on the 14th of April, 1802. I have no recollec- tion of any other state from which I came, and have had no reason to judge that I came from any other state at all. I sup- pose that I was not made, but generated, being the son of one soul which was the son of another, which was the son of God. But these parent souls out of which I came I do not remem- ber as having been conversant with their substance. I have only heard of some of them by report. Indeed, I came, as I suppose, scarcely knoMung myself, and having it for a great part of my errand here to find, get a knowledge of, and so get iull possession of, myself. For I was only a tender, rubi- cund mollusk of a creature at the time when I came out in this rough battle with winds, winters, and w^ickedness ; and, so far from being able to take care of myself, I was only a little and confusedly conscious of ra3'self, or that I was any- body ; and when I broke into this little, confused conscious- ness, it was with a cry — such a dismal figure did I make to myself; or perchance it was something prophetic, without inspiration, a foreshadow, dim and terrible, of the great battle of w^oe and sin I w^as sent hither to fight. But my God and my good mother both heard the cry and went to the task of strengthening and comforting me together, and w^ere able ere long to get a smile upon my face. My mother's loving in- 2 A FKAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. stiuct was from God, and God was in love to me first there- fore ; which love was deeper than hers, and more protracted. Long years ago she vanished, but God stays by me still, embracing me, in my gray hairs, as tenderly and carefully as she did in my infancy, and giving to me as my joy and the principal glory of my life that he lets me know him, and helps me, with real confidence, to call him my Father, Would that I could simply tell his method with' me and show its significance. " My figure in this world has not been great, but I have had a great experience. I have never been a great agitator, never pulled a wire to get the will of men, never did a politic thing. It was not for this reason, but because I was looked upon as a singularity — not exactly sane, perhaps, in many things — that I was almost never a president or vice-president of any soci- ety, and almost never on a committee. Take the report of my doings on the platform of the world's business, and it is naught. I have filled no place at all. But still it has been a great thing even for me to live. In my separate and merely personal kind of life, I have had a greater epic transacted than was ever Avritten, or could be. The little turns of my way have turned great changes, — what I am now as distinguislied from the merely molhisk and pulpy state of infancy ; the drawing-out of my powei's, the correcting of my errors, the winnowing of my faults, the washing of my sins ; that which has given me principles, opinions, and, more than all, a faith, and, as the fruit of this, an abiding in the sense and free par- taking of tlie life of God. Oh that I could trace the subtle art of my Teacher and show the shifting scenes of the drama which he has kept me acting ! "What a history — of redemp- tion and more ! I will try, as I best can, to show it. Help me, O my God ! Refresh my memoiy. Quicken my insight. Exalt my conceptions of thy meanings, and give me to see just how thou hast led me, that I may quicken others to look for thy mercy, and see that thou hast also as great, and great- er, things to do for them," LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. CHAPTER I. 1802-1823. EARLY LIFE AT HOME. Horace Bushnell was born on the l-ttli of April. 1802, in the town of Litchfield, Connecticut. To have been born then and there was the best of omens. At the beginning of this century the national struggle for life was over, and even the exhaustion and impoverishment which war had left behind were disappearing. It was a time of unbounded hope, and of immense, though vaguely realized, possibilities. Litch- field County, like the rest of our little state, had done good, and even brilliant, service in the war ; and now, emerging from its depression, was beginning to take courage and plan wisely for her future. The people were enterprising. They built good turnpike roads; opened schools and academies; started manufactures ; and made their law-school, founded some years earlier, a prominent seat of constitutional training whence came some of the best lawyers of the country. They also joined in the movements for missionary work and temjDer- ance reform ; which reform, if we may recall some of the stories of our grandmothers, was much needed in the days of our great -grandsires. Nature had given them a goodl}'- heritage, both in their own sturd}^ bone and muscle and in the lovely but rugged country of their possession. Here, also, bone and muscle are prominent. But this portion of vertebrate ISTew England is so roundly covered with a strong soil, so veined with well-fed water-courses, and clothed upon 4 LIFE OF IIOKACE BUSHNELL. ■with rich verdure, that its wild beauty is redeemed from all harshness. The very air breathes vigor and purity. There could be no fresher, wholesomer, more vigorous atmosphere, moral and physical, to be drawn in with the first breath of life than that of Litchfield at the date of Horace Bushnell's birth. The birthplace was an old house, now gone, at the fork of the roads and opposite the Episcopal church, in the little vil- lage of Bantam, two miles west of Litchfield Hill. The name of this hamlet, derived from the peaceful tribe of Bantam Indians who were the original owners of the soil, had once been the title of the whole township, but now was limited to this small portion of it. The parents. Ensign Bushnell and Dotha, his wife (whose maiden name was Bishop), were but lately married — this their first home, Horace their first child. They were plain farming people, known to their neighbors as well for their excellent abilities as for their uprightness, in- dustry, and kindliness. They were both religious, but be- longed to different communions, he to the Methodist, she to the Episcopal Church. If we trace back the family lineage, we find the Bushnells among the first settlers of Saybrook and Guilford. In Eng- land the family had been, it is thought probable, French Hu- guenot refugees, as the name, diiferently spelled, is still found in France, and some of the emigrants to this country bore French Christian -names. Other indications point to the same theory, "We learn of no titled or distinguished person- ages among them. Their only patent of nobility they car- ried in their capable hands and heads. Francis Bushnell, "ye elder," is recorded as the third signer of the covenant for the settlement of Guilford, in June, 1639. Sixth in the line of descent from Francis is Abraham Bushnell, who settled at Canaan Falls, and there married Miss Molly Ensign. They had twelve children, the second of whom bore his mother's maiden name, and was the father of Horace Bushnell. The little family of Ensign Bushnell removed from their home in Litchfield, in the year 1805, to N'ew Preston, a village about fourteen miles from Litchfield, and in the most pictu- EARLY LIFE AT HOME. 5 resque part of the same county. There is reason to think tliat the inducement to this removal lay in the superior water- power of New Preston, and that an interest in carding wool and dressing cloth by machinery had come to Ensign Bush- nell from his father at Canaan Falls, where was erected, in 1802, the first carding-machine ever built in the state. At all events, this, in addition to farming, soon became his business. The scenery of I^ew Preston abounds in lovely pictures, of which Lake Waramaug is the centre. This sheet of crystal- line water winds like a river among its hilly shores, which, at the southern end, rise and peer at their own woody shadows in its still mirror. On the east the Pinnacle rises from the water, its erect figure clothed half-way up with forest, its rocky outline, as seen from the lake, projected against the sky. From its base the lake turns away westward with a wider sweep, the shores gracefully indented with little coves and crowned with green farms. Polling hills, Sugar-loaf and others, fill the western distance, and tlirough their misty val- leys and across the w^ater the setting sun sends the glory of his level beams. The outlet of the lake is from the southern end, and pours its foaming stream through a narrow valley, from which the hills on either side rise steeply. The little mills and shops which line this stream and use its water-power, and the rugged farms that climb these hill -sides, compose the village of ISTew Preston, which still, nestled in the safe seclusion of woods and mountains, keeps much of its old character of remoteness from the world. The Bushnells chose their farm and fixed their home upon the southeastern slope of " a broad-backed hill, which stretches a mile upward and westward to a rounded summit, w'here stands the church." As this hill turns its back upon the lake, the view does not include the water, but is a" wide outlook down the winding valley and across the rolling summits of the hills which, for ten miles, part it from that of the IIou- satonic. The farm lying on this sunny slope is a rough and rocky one — one to tax the strength and patient skill of him who tilled it. " No ornamental rock-work is needed to set off the landscape. Nature's rock-work will stand, and 6 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. the toil that is necessary to clear the soil is just what is requi- site to sharpen the vigor of our people. The necessities of a rough country and an intractable soil are good necessities." This was the lesson of early experience as recalled by Horace Bushnell in manhood. The home was a roomy and cheerful farm-house which, fac- ing south, stands back a little from the road behind its row of shady maples, with that expression of reserve and comfort- able independence so familiar in New England. But in those days no such green shadow fell at noonday to curtain the house from the dust and travel of the road ; for it was Horace Bushnell, then but a stripling, who brought the young trees upon his back from the mountain and planted them there. Just below the house the hill pitches down into the hollow where the stream I'ushes and the mill hummed in old days. The home, the early surroundings, introduce us to the man, and upon this natural background we can see him best. I^ay, the very soil is allied to him, and the air is a subtile sugges- tion of his spirit. So said lately his dear friend. Dr. Burton, when speaking to those friends who had known him best : — " Not long after Dr. Bushnell died, I had occasion, for the first time in my life, to go into the town where he grew to manhood. And, as I looked out on the fields and the woods, and the hills and the waters that had been so familiar to his eyes and had become so associated with his name, he came back to me and filled me wnth his presence in a manner I do not dare try much to describe. In all my many meetings with him while he was alive, in all my most interested readings of his books, in all my absorbed listenings to his public dis- courses, I never took such a full-toned and melting sense of his personality and of him with me, as I did while standing in those scenes and saying to myself, ' Here roamed that child who was finally to be one of the great quickening thinkers of the world. In this lake he fished ; on these strong heights he stood in the presence and inspiration of great Nature, whose most secret meanings he eventually interpreted in a dic- tion all alive and radiant with natural images ; up yonder long hill to the church on the top he trudged on Sundays, a little EARLY LIFE AT HOME. 7 boy with his great round head and his bare feet ; in that house which I just see in the distance he spent the days of his youtli, with father, mother, and the rest, in that dear and homely home-hfe which fed his heart and toned his mind for the ro- bust and magnetic work lie was to do in after-times. Yes, here in these simple surroundings and nourished by this char- acteristic New England scenery, unknown to himself and un- known to his friends, no one then suspecting what a future of power was before him, he passed his days ; and from here he passed out into college and into the broad world ; and to these places of his youth, as long as he lived, it was his un- dying pleasure to return, and here, during the years wherein the shadow of death was upon him and he was visibly fading away, he was continually coming back as on a sacred pilgrim- age, and replenishing his failing fund of life.' " In this home grew up a lively family of boys and girls — four of the former, two of the latter. Eeared in the simplest habits ; taught from childhood to work and contribute, each his share, to the plain family living ; ignorant of the world, but not of God, they grew undisturbed as flowers do in the wild recesses of a mountain, straight up, and keeping each an aroma all its own. The father of the household was a sturdy and spirited man, pleasant in his ways to child or neighbor, full of New England grit, resolute in work, and of a steady cheerfulness in all the ups and downs of life. He did not by constant chiding worry his children ; but if he punished, it was thoroughly done. His eldest son once told one of his own children that his father "never whipped him but once, and then he flogged him;" and also said to a friend that he re- membered this tremendous discipline as one of the best things that ever hjippened to him. In one of his books, doubtless with the same event in mind, he wrote, " There is many a grown-up man who will remember such an hour of discipline as the time when the ploughshare of God's truth went into his soul like redemption itself. That was the shock that woke him up to the stanch realities of principle ; and he will recol- lect that father as God's minister typified to all dearest, holi- est reverence by the pungent indignations of that time." Of 2 8 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. the mother's high Christian patience, steadfastness, and wis- dom it was her son's loving pleasure to write, towards the close of his own life, a comj^lete and graphic storj, which, in connection with a sketch of his grandmother, will be found in the following chapter. It is enough to say of her here that her motherly wisdom was equalled by her practical effi- ciency, and that she managed her great household with such rare tact and skill as to blend with its neatness and comfort a simple but home-like charm. The youngest of the family, born at a time when her labors and anxieties were the heavi- est, has the same delightful memories of her. "Writing of his elder brother lately, he said, " He was born in a household where religion was no occasional and nominal thing, no irk- some restraint nor unwelcome visitor, but a constant atmos- phere, a commanding but genial presence. In our father it was characterized by eminent evenness, fairness, and conscien- tiousness ; in our mother it was felt as an intense life of love, utterly unselfish and untiring in its devotion, yet thoughtful, sagacious, and wise, always stimulating and ennobling, and in special crises leaping out in tender and almost awful fire. If ever there was a child of Christian nurture, he was one ; nurt- ured, I will not say, in the formulas of theology as sternly as some ; for though he had to learn the Westminster Catechism, its formulas were not held as of equal or superior authority to that of the Scriptures ; not nurtured in what might be called the emotional elements of religion as fervently as some, but nurtured in the facts and principles of the Christian faith in their bearing upon the life and character; and if ever a man was true to the fundamental principles and the customs which i^revailed in his early home, even to his latest years, he was."* It was not strange that such a mother should have special pleasure in such a son, w^atching and recognizing his unfold- ing genius with a mother's quick insight. She had, besides, secret hopes, nourished silently in her own heart for years, and reaching back even to the time before his birth, when she * Rev. George Bushuell, iu the Advance. EARLY LIFE AT HOME. 9 had, in the enthusiasm of that new experience, made an of- fering of her unborn to God, dedicating him forever to his service and ministry. From this hidden purpose she never swerved, and when he went into the study of law, after leaving college, she said, " If he is not a minister, I shall not know what to think of it." In childhood he was her constant companion. He followed, her in her domestic occupations, and saw and shared, as a child might, her patient toil for children and home. His sunny and affectionate temper helped to lighten her burdens ; and w^hen he was a man, no longer at her side, her simple testimony was that " he had always been a good son to her." Intimacy and companionship with this good mother was his education, interweaving its influences watli the very fibres of his being, and preparing him by its inspirations for the work before him. There were one or two incidents of his childhood which she used to recall. One was that wdien a toddler of three or four years he ran before her one day over a low foot-bridge across the stream, and, in his un- steady childish liaste, fell off into the water. She caught him by his hair as he rose, and saved him. The current was swift and deep, and it must have required quickness and pres- ence of mind to do it. Another rather significant little story is that, before he could talk plainly, it was a favorite amuse- ment with him to imitate the process of dyeing, by dipping bits of white rag into clear water, and then, hanging them up in the sunlight, to stand off and admire the imaginary beauty of their colors. An ingenious imagination and a love of color, qualities both conspicuous in his maturity, are fore- shadowed here. The teaching of home was early supplemented by that of the district school ; for he was not more than five years old wdien he came under the care of that beloved teacher, Perry Averill, of whom he said years afterwards, " My enthusiasm, my delight, in my teacher I do not forget, and never lost the benefit of." As the instructions of this master lasted but a year, this enthusiasm of a child of five years, graduating into the life-long gratitude of the man, was the more remarkable. Questioned, when a gray-haired man, by a ISTew Preston friend, 10 LIFE OF HOKACE BUSHNELL. as to the time when lie first became conscious of his own pow- ers, his reply was, " In a little old school-house that stood in your pasture-lot, when I was sitting on a slab with legs in it so long that my feet did not touch the floor, then I first got the idea that I was a power." His own picture of that school, of the church, and of the hardy home-training is taken from his address entitled " The Age of Homespun," which was deliv- ered at the Litchfield Centennial Celebration in 1851, and fol- lows here : — " But the scliools — we must not pass by these, if we are to form a truthful and sufficient picture of the liomespun days. The schoolmaster did not exactly go round the district to fit out the children's minds with learning, as the shoemaker often did to fit their feet with shoes, or the tailor to measure and cut for their bodies ; but, to come as near it as possible, he boarded round (a custom not yet gone bj') ; and the wood for the common fire was supjjlied in a way equally i^rimitive — viz., by a con- tribution of loads from the several families according to their several quantities of childhood. The children were all clothed alike in home- spun ; and the only signs of aristocracy were that some were clean and some a degree less so, some in fine white and striped linen, some in brown tow crash : and, in particular, as I remember with a certain feeling of quality I do not like to express, the good fathers of some testified the opinion they had of their children hj bringing fine round loads of hick- ory wood to warm them, while some others, I regret to say, brought only scanty, scraggy, ill-looking heaps of green oak, white birch, and hemlock. Indeed, about all the bickerings of quality among the children centred in the quality of the wood-jDile. There was no comiilaiut, in those days, of the want of ventilation ; for the large open fireplace held a consider- able fraction of a cord of wood, and the windows took in just enough air to sujiply the combustion. Besides, the bigger lads were occasionally ventilated by being sent out to cut wood enough to keej) the fire in ac- tion. The seats were made of the outer slabs from the saw-mill, sujDport- ed by slant legs driven into, and a proper distance through, auger-holes, and planed smooth on the top by the rather tardy process of friction. But the spelling went on bravely, and we cijihered away again and again, always till we got through Loss and Gain. The more advanced of us, too, made light work of Lindley Murray, and went on to the parsing, finally, of extracts from Shakespeare and Milton, till some of us began to think we had mastered their tough sentences in a more consequential sense of the term than was exactly true. Oh, I remember (about the re- motest thing I can remember) that low seat, too high, nevertheless, to allow the feet to touch the floor, and that friendly teacher who had the EARLY LIFE AT HOME. 11 address to start a first feeling of enthusiasm and awaken the first sense of power. He is living still ; and whenever I think of him he rises up to me in the far l)ackground of memory as bright as if he had worn the seven stars in his hair. (I said he is living ; yes, he is here to-day, God bless him !) How many others of you that are here assembled recall these little primitive universities of homespun, where your mind was born, with a similar feeling of reverence and homely satisfaction ! Per- haps you remember, too, with a pleasure not less genuine, that you re- ceived the classic discipline of the university proper under a dress of homespun, to be graduated, at the close, in the joint honors of broad- cloth and the parchment. " Passing from the school to the church, or, rather I should say, to the meeting-house (good translation, whether meant or not, of what is older and more venerable than churcli — viz., synagogue), here, again, you meet the picture of a sturdy homespun w'orship. Probably it stands on some hill, midway between three or four valleys, whither the tribes go up to worship, and, when the snow-drifts are deepest, go literally from strength to strength. There is no furnace or stove, save the foot-stoves that are filled from the fires of the neighboring houses, and brought in partly as a rather formal compliment to the delicacy of the tender sex, and some- times because they are really wanted. The dress of the assembly is mostly homespun, indicating only slight distinctions of quality in the worshippers. They are seated according to age, the older in front near the pulpit, and the younger farther back, enclosed in pews, sitting back to back, im- pounded, all, for deep thought and spiritual digestion ; only the deacons, sitting close under tlie pulpit, by themselves, to receive as their distinc- tive honor the more perpendicular droppings of the word. Clean round the front of the gallery is drawn a single row of choir, headed by the key- pipe in the centre. The pulpit is overhung by an august wooden canopy, called a sounding-board — study general, of course, and first lesson of mystery to the eyes of the children until what time their ears are open- ed to understand the spoken mysteries. " There is no aftectation of seriousness in the assembly, no mannerism of worship; some w'ould say, too little of the manner of worship. They think of nothing, in fact, save what meets their intelligence and enters into them by that method. They appear like men who have a diges- tion for strong meat, and have no conception that trifles more delicate can be of any account to feed the system. Nothing is dull that has the matter in it, nothing long that has not exhausted the matter. If the minister speaks in his great-coat and thick gloves or mittens, if the howling blasts of winter blow^ in across the assembly fresh streams of ventilation that move the hair upon their heads, they are none the less content if only he gives them good, strong exercise. Under their hard and, as some would say, stolid faces, great thoughts are brewing, and 12 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. these keep them warm. Free-will, fixed ftite, foreknowledge absolute, Trinity, redemption, special grace, eternity — give them anything high enough, and the tough muscle of their inward man will be climbing sturdily into it ; and if they go away having something to think of, they have had a good day. A perceptible glow will kindle in their hard faces only when some one of the chief apostles — a Day, a Smith, or a Bellamy— has come to lead them up some higher pinnacle of thought, or pile upon their sturdy mind some heavier weight of argument ; fainting never under any weight, even that which, to the foreign critics of the dis- courses preached by them and otliers of their day, it seems impossible for any, the most cultivated audience in the w^orld, to have supported. Oh these royal men of homespun, how great a thing to them was religion ! " True, there was a rigor in their piety, a want of gentle feeling; their Christian graces were cast-iron shapes, answering with a hard, metallic ring. But they stood the rough wear of life none the less durably for the excessive hardness of their temperament, kept their fiimilies and com- munities none the less truly, though it may be less benignly, under tlie sense of God and religion. If we find something to modify or soften in their over-rigid notions of Christian living, it is yet something to know that what we are they have made us, and that when we have done bet- ter for the ages that come after us we shall have a more certain right to blame their austerities. "View them as we may, there is yet, and always will be, something magnificent in their stern, practical fidelity to their principles. If they believed it to be more Scriptural and Christian to begin their Sunday, not with the Western, but with the Jewish and other Eastern nations, at the sunset on Saturday, their practice did not part company with their prin- ciples ; it was sundown at sundown, not somewhere between that time and the next morning. Thus I remember being despatched, when a lad, one Saturday afternoon in the winter, to bring home a few bushels of apples engaged of a farmer a mile distant ; how the careful, exact man looked first at the clock, then out of the window at the sun, and, turning to me, said, 'I cannot measure out the apples in time for you to get home before sundown ; you must come again Monday ;' then how I went home, venting my boyish impatience in words not exactly respectful, assisted by the sunlight playing still upon the eastern hills, and got for my com- fort a very unaccountably small amount of specially silent sympathy. " I have never yet ascertained whether that refusal was exactly justi- fied by the patriarchal authorities appealed to or not. Be that as it may, have what opinion of it you will, I confess to you, for one, that I recall the honest, faitliful days of homespun represented in it— days when men's lives went by their consciences, as tlieir clocks did by the sun — with a feeling of profoundest reverence. It is more than respectable— it is sub- lime. . . . EARLY LIFE AT HOME. 13 "The sons and daughters grew up, all, as you will perceive, in the closest habits of industry. The house was a factory on the farm, the farm a grower and producer for the house. The exchanges went on briskly enough, but required neither money nor trade. No affectation of polite living, no languishing airs of delicacy and softness in-doors, had begun to make the fathers and sons impatient of hard work out of doors, and set them at contriving some easier and more plausible way of living. Their very dress represented work, and they went out as men whom the wives and daughters had dressed for work ; facing all weather, cold and hot, wet and dry ; wrestling with the plough on the stony-sided hills ; digging out the rocks by hard lifting and a good many very practical experiments in mechanics; dressing the flax ; threshing the rye ; dragging home in the deep snows the great wood-pile of the year's consumption ; and then, when the day was ended, having no loose money to spend in taverns, taking their recreation, all together, in reading or singing, or happy talk, or silent looking in the fire, and finally in sleep— to rise again with the sun, and pray over the ftimily Bible for just such another good day as the last. And so they lived, working out, each year, a little ad- vance of thrift, just within the line of comfort. " No mode of life was ever more expensive ; it was life at the expense of labor too stringent to allow the highest culture and the most proper enjoyment. Even the dress of it was more expensive than we shall ever see again. Still it was a life of honesty and simple content and sturdy victory. Immoralities, that rot down the vigor and humble the con- sciousness of families, were as much less frequent as they had less thought of adventure, less to do with travel and trade and money, and were closer to nature and the simple life of home. . . . " It was also a great point, in tliis homespun mode of life, that it im- parted exactly what many speak of only with contempt, a closely girded habit of economy. Harnessed, all together, into the producing process, young and old, male and female, from the boy that rode the plough- horse to the grandmother knitting under her spectacles, they had no conception of squandering lightly what they all had been at work, thread by thread, and grain by grain, to produce. They knew too exactly what everything cost, even small things, not to husband them carefully. Men of patrimony in the great world, therefore, noticing their small way in trade or expenditure, are ready, as we often see, to charge them with mean- ness, simply because they knew things only in the small ; or, what is not fiir different, because they were too simple and rustic to have any conception of the big operations by which other men are wont to get their money without earning it, and lavish the more freely because it was not earned. Still, this knowing life only in the small, it will be found, is really anything but meanness. "Probably enough, tlie man who is heard threshing in his barn of a 14 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. wiiitev evening by the light of a hxntern (I knew such an example) will be seen driving his team next clay, the coldest day of the year, through the deep snow to a distant wood lot, to draw a load for a present to his minister. So the housewife that higgles for a half-hour with the mer- chant over some small trade is yet one that will keep watch, not unlike- ly, when the schoolmaster, boarding round the district, comes to some hard quarter, and commence asking him to dinner, then to tea, then to stay over night, and literally boarding him till the hard quarter is pass- ed. Who now, in the great world of money, will do as much, propor- tionally as much, in any of the jiure hospitalities of life? , . . " When the hard, wiry-looking patriarch of homespun sets off for Hart- ford or Bridgeport to exchange the little surplus of his year's produc- tion, carrying his provision with him and the fodder of his team, and taking his boy along to show him the great world, you may laugh at the simplicity, or pity, if you will, the sordid look of the picture ; but, five or ten years hence, this boy will like enough be found in college, digging out the cents'-worth of his father's money in hard study ; and some twen- ty years later he will be returning, in his honors, as the celebrated judge or governor, or senator and public orator, from some one of the great states of the republic, to bless the sight once more of that venerated pair who shaped his beginnings and planted the small seeds of his future success. Small seeds, you may have thought, of meanness ; but now they have grown up and blossomed into a large-minded life, a generous public devotion, and a free benevolence to mankind." The allusion, in the account of the school, to the generous fair-dealing of the father who sent to the school-house solid loads of straight hickory touches upon what was a special point of boyish pride w^ith him concerning his own father. The closing paragraphs, too, evidently contain family history. A longer journey than one to Hartford or Bridgeport oc- curred when he was about six years old. He went with his father and mother to visit the paternal grandparents living in Vermont ; and, naturally enough, the strongest impressions which remained of this long journey in their own wagon were of the weariness and hunger of the last day's travel through what was then a wilderness, and of his enjoyment of the coarse brown bread which his father obtained at a chance farm-house. The exquisite flavor of that brown bread was a pleasant memory all his life. An impression of a higher kind was made upon the child by his grandmother. We shall soon hear from him how strongly he was impressed by her original EARLY LIFE AT HOME. 15 and magnetic character. But one letter from lier to liini re- mains. It is dated 1823, and begins thus : " In your mind view your grandmother, confined very much to lier room, with her Bible in her lap, trying to write to you, my child. On account of the weakness of my side, I cannot sit at a table to write. You cannot expect anything but my good-will, for old age has shaken me by the hand and left a tremble." The religious impressions of childhood which he was able to recall in later life were of the simplest and most natural kind, coming to him unforced, often in the fields, and quick- ened by his delight in nature, impressions, as he said, "not of fear, nor in a sense of wrong, but in a sense of the divine beauty and majesty." There was a fine gray bowlder in the pasture back of the house and above it, where he sometimes went, when only a boy, to watch the sun rise, and where in morning freshness the boy's heart rose, too, in prayer. He has also told us how, one Sunday, on his way home from church, he was moved to stop and pray under the shadow of a hay- stack. All this he called, in his brief record of the facts, "early dew, dim" — the natural heaven-refreshing of the young soul mistily remembered. In all the days of youthful labor on the farm or in the mill, Xature was his chosen companion, and foster-mother of his imagination in craft beyond the skill of schoolmasters. They were "days of victorious health, sound digestion, peaceful sleep, and youthful spirits buoyant as the wing of the bird, and fresh as its morning song." If work abounded, play was not wanting ; and thus he grew a ruddy-cheeked, lively boy, as full of fun and animal spirits as of an earnest inward purpose. This was especially true after the age of twelve, when he had a low fever and came near death ; but, that danger past, a favorable change seemed to have been wrought in his constitution, and "he developed greater vigor and strength. In school, where he kept his own rather quiet and good- natured way, he first learned the need of combat and the pleasure of conquest. Awaking suddenly to the perception of the fact that his good-nature was mistaken for weakness, and that he was being made the butt of the school bullies, he IG LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. chose the roughest and the most intolerable of these, a much bigger boy than himself, and gave him, in the presence of the school, so spirited a thrashing as to establish his own char- acter for courage bejond a doubt. No more fighting was uecessar}', and he was glad to relapse into his old peaceable relations with his schoolmates. In his studies he was not pre- cocious ; but when under the stimulus of ambition, he could apply himself with great intensity. Put into a class of Eng- lish grammar with some grown-up girls, and determined, boy- like, not to be outdone by them, he gave himself so intently to the study, that it possessed him day and night ; and it was at this time that his mother overheard him parsing in his sleep. A schoolmate, the son of a near neighbor, writes : " I knew Horace Bushnell up to the age of fourteen years, seeing him almost daily, though we were never playmates — I was his elder by four years, I think — and I only remember him as an affable, sprightly, frolicsome boy, fond of sport and hearty laughter, and of a highly happy temperament. His ideas seemed to flow rapidly, and he uttered them fluently ; but I used to think that he lacked the power to concentrate his thoughts upon any subject for more than a moment. He learned readily when he applied himself to study ; but I think, at that age, he would rather play than study. He would keep up with the best of his class though, whether he played or studied. I well remember meeting him while he was a stu- dent in Yale College, and that I was greatly surprised at the improvement in him since I knew him in his boyhood. His mind had greatly expanded, his observations were quick and accurate, and his conversation and deportment gave evidence of study, thought, and high aim. I said to myself, ' Horace Bushnell will make his mark.' " His father was not only farmer, but manufacturer, and had, in the hollow below the farm, a little mill for finishing do- mestic cloths, and a carding-machine to which the neighbors brought their wool. Machinery supplemented, but did not yet supersede, hand-labor. At the age of fourteen, and for five years afterwards, Horace was employed in the different departments of the mill in summer, always going to school in EARLY LIFE AT HOME. 17 winter, but with "off turns" upon the farm, ploughing and harvesting, in spring and autumn. Even in the first year of mill-work, having entire charge of the carding-maehine in a separate building where he worked alone, and finding it out of order, he took it entirely apart, repaired, improved, and re- constructed it. His taste for mechanics led him to study and invent improvements in the machinery, and may have been one cause among others of his declining a college educa- tion offered him at this time by his parents. In such a busy, hard-working life, it would seem as if opportunities for men- tal culture must have been lacking ; but to a mind like his there is education in everything. He "]3ut extortion upon common things," and extracted the wine of life by pressure. We shall see by-and-by how he learned music. In many other branches of study he was his own master, and discovered by exploring. In the winter of 181Y, he was sent to the high- school at Warren ; and the next winter to a classical school just opened on New Preston hill, where he began the study of Latin. An early friend (Professor Henry Day) writes concerning this period: "I recollect him as a stout, resolute, self-reliant, bright, practical, kindly boy, a leader and a favorite. He was free from little vices, of irrej^roachable morals in a very moral family and community, truthful and every way trust- worthy. The earliest fact that I recall in my intercourse with him was his telling me, one day when we were in bathing, in his characteristic, decisive way, to plunge into dee]) water, al- though I could not swim, assuring me that he would help me if I needed help. My confidence in him was such that I plunged in unhesitatingly, and found that I did not need further help than the confidence he had already inspired within me. "When the ]^ew Preston Academy was opened, in 1818, we were, for the first time, schoolmates. The monitorial system was introduced, under which the older boys served successively as monitors, to watch and report delinquencies in the school. When it came round to Bushnell's turn, he refused to serve, saying that he came there to study, himself, not to 18 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. watcli other students. The monitorial system was abandoned. After this I was away from home at school, and saw him only in vacations ; but I recall one or two trivial incidents, which, however, to me exemplify that remarkable degree of ready and sound common-sense which he possessed in union with a brilliant imagination. He was fond of fishing. Observing that the pickerel generally seized the bait — commonly a min- now or a piece of a larger fish — while it was hauled in, he conceived the idea that a white rag, with a little sand in it for a sinker, would answer the purpose just as well ; the pick- erel would seize it, and, as its teeth point in and back, would be unable to let go if the rag were rapidly hauled in. The device proved a most successful one. One day we went to- gether to the lake for a sail. We found the only boat to be had so out of equipment for use in respect of mast and sail that the boat-master said he could not possibly rig it up for our use. Bushnell took the matter in hand, and in a half- hour rigged out the boat with mast and sail and ropes, and so we had a delightful sail. The wind, however, was light. Bushnell called me to the rudder, saying, 'I will Cjuicken our speed a little.' He took the bailing-dish, and, by throwing a few basins of water on the sail, he made it, by this simple ex- pedient of swelling the threads, hold wind which before had passed through them. Our speed was perceptibly increased." It was not only his ingenuity which was brought into exer- cise by this out-door life. He was keenly perceptive of natu- ral scenery in a way peculiar to himself. It was not only the picture which filled his eye and kindled his imagination, but the recesses of nature — something unknown, which he could study and intellectually explore. It was his habit to survey by his eye the lines of the hills and valleys, and to print thus upon his mind a map of the surfaces. This became a favorite study in after-life, and he carried it so far that if a railroad were projected through a region which he knew, he could mark out from memory its most feasible route. From another classmate, who passed several weeks of a win- ter in the Bushnell family, w^e learn that Horace, then be- tween sixteen and seventeen years old, was nearly a man in EAKLY LIFE AT HOME. 19 stature, and a healthy, mnseular fellow. He was very genial at home, full of jokes and bright sayings, interesting in con- versation, and fond of writing droll doggerel for the amuse- ment of the other young people. He was, however, always ready for a more strenuous use of his powers, and especially for their exercise in debate. When only a boy, he had be- longed to a debating-society, and from that time on was eager for the intelligent discussion of any subject, wherever — at the village store or elsewhere — he found a group of talkers. It is superfluous, almost, to add that his opinions were his OM'n, and independently expressed. He liked a trial of muscle as well as of bi-ains, and challenged some of the best wrestlers of the region to combats that were not unequal. His father was a justice of the peace, and it belonged to his office to hold a little court for the settlement of such disputes as arise between neighboring landholders. In the discharge of this duty he was much respected for the impartiality and fairness of his decisions ; but, finding himself sometimes per- plexed, he occasionally made his eldest son his associate in the work, and consulted with him at the close of an argument, relying more upon his judgment than upon his own. This doubtless fostered the son's taste for the study of law ; and shows that if his mind was not judicial, it was, at least, adapt- ed to the sifting and weighing of evidence. These grave duties, apparently so far beyond his age, did not, however, repress his exuberance or make an old man out of the boy. Sometimes he broke bounds, though in nothing worse than some boyish frolic. He never transgressed in morals, for there was a wholesome purity about him which discouraged, if it did not debar, temptation — only in observances, and that where the standard of observances was a little unreasonably strict. One Sunday, instead of going to church decorously with the family, he went off with some companions for a frolic and climb up the " Pinnacle." On the mountain they were caught in a terrific thunder-storm. The thunder rolled, and rain poured down in solid sheets without a pause. The sobered boys took refuge under a projecting rock until the fury of the storm had spent itself, pondering, it is possible, 20 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. on sermons they liad heard which j^ainted in an awful light the fate of the Sabbath-breaker ; and, at all events, as Horace Bushnell remembered, honestly repenting their disobedience to authority and so to their own consciences. This little es- capade was mnch talked of at the time in the village, and is even yet remembered in that church-going community. As to his religious standing at this time we have the best of internal evidence in a manuscript which we find thus en- dorsed by his maturer hand : " This was written, as I remem- ber, a sentence or half a sentence at a time, while tending a carding-machine, and before I made a profession of religion. I was probably seventeen years of age." The paper is yellow with the stains of his toil, the handwriting rather stiff, the logic and theology very much so. The subject is the ninth of Romans, and he wrestles manfully with the chapter, out of which and the connected chapters Calvinism has ex- tracted some of its most indigestible doctrines. The essay opens with a characteristic attempt to prove that in the third vei-se, wliere Paul " wishes himself accursed from Christ for his brethren," he must have been mistaken in himself, and could not, consistently with his character as an apostle, have felt such a willingness. A chain of logical syllogisms is made to support this conclusion. In the following pages he works his way through the doctrines of election, predestination, and the sovereignty of God, on all of which points he seems to have been at that day soundly orthodox. The method through- out is strictly logical, and has no trace of the spiritual insight which later characterized his thought on these and kindred subjects. (As he grew older, he abandoned formal logic, in which he was a youthful adept, as childish, just as some other men, maturing, throw away their poetry and sentiment.) There are, however, occasional turns of phraseology similar to those which gave so peculiar a flavor to his later style, and which, though they seem unnatural to some minds, were altogether native to his. Crude as this paper is, it must have cost the young workman much study, and it proves that, far from having in youth any infidel tendencies, as some have suspect- ed, his mind was striving to adapt itself to the standard re- EARLY LIFE AT HOME. 21 ligioiis teachings of the day. If any other evidence of that sort were needed, we could offer it abundantly. Another short paper, kept with the one already mention- ed, bears the following superscription, written in later life: " Saved as a record of dates. IS^ot wonderful that a Christian life begun in such crudity — if, indeed, it was begun, which was afterwards doubted — required many turns of loss and recovery to ripen it." The original date was March 3, 1822. " A year since," he says, " the Lord, in his tender mercy, led me to Jesus. Four months since, in the presence of God and angels and men, I vowed to be the Lord's, in an everlasting covenant never to be broken. But alas, alas, O my God ! how often in the past year, or even in the last four months, have I dishonored thy cause and lost sight of my Redeemer ! ... If I should never sin again, it would not atone for what is past. What can I do? . . . Lord, here I am, a sinner. Take me. Take all that I have and shall have ; all that I am and shall be ; and do with me as seemeth good. If thou hast anything for me to do ; if thou hast anything for me to suffer in the cause of that Saviour on whom I rest my all, I am ready to labor, to suffer, or to die. I am ready to do anything or be anything for thee." After he had joined the church, he en- gaged for a time enthusiastically in religious work. There was a little brown school-house in the outskirts of the village, which he used to point out as the place where he had "first tried his hand as a leader of religious meetings." Beginning now, at the age of nineteen, to long for the col- lege education he had once refused, he applied himself dili- gently to study with this end in view. A young lawyer, late- ly graduated from Yale College, was taken into the family, in the hope that he would lend his assistance to these studies. Chiefly alone, however, for a time, and finally with the Eev. Horace Hooker, of Watertown, he made a rather imperfect preparation for college. Feeling the confinement of study under these circumstances to be unfavorable to his health, and with his habitual impatience of delay, he went to New Llaven in the early summer of 1823, anticipating by two months the usual time of examination, and was admitted to 22 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. Yale College. He then went back gladly to farm-work for the summer, and, as a recreation, bnilt the solid stone dam above his father's mill, which is still standing, a good piece of workmanship. He was specially fond of stone- masonry, because it demands good planning and a quick eye for corre- sponding surfaces. A friend relates that, one day when he was suffering from a toothache, he built a rod or two of stone- wall, which rather singular remedy, he said, relieved liim com- pletely. And so the old simple life of home drew to a close, and rural society was left behind for what he then called "the great world of college." It was not strange that it should have seemed great and full of excitement to the young man whose social experience had been hitherto of tlie quiet kind depicted in his "Homespun" picture. We quote once more his own words : — " If we speak of what in the polite world is called society, our home- spun age liad just none of it ; and perhaps the more of society for that reason, because what they had was separate rom all the polite fictions and empty conventionalities of the world. It was the society, not of the Nominalists, but of the Realists ; society in or after work ; spontaneously gathered, for the most part, in terras of elective affinity ; foot excursions of young people, or excursions on horseback, after the haying, to the tops of the neighboring mountains; boatings on the river or the lake by moonlight, filling the wooded shores and the recesses of the hills with lively echoes ; evening schools of sacred music, in which the music is not so much sacred as preparing to be ; evening circles of young persons falling together, as they imagine, by accident, round some village queen of song, and chasing away the time in ballads and glees so much faster than they wish that just such another accident is like to happen soon; neighbors called in to meet the minister and talk of both worlds together, and, if he is limber enough to sufier it, in such happy mixtures that both are melted into one. " But most of all to be remembered are those friendly circles gathered so often round the winter's fire — not the stove, but the fire — the brightly blazing, hospitable fire. In tlie early dusk, the home circle is drawn more closely and quietly round it ; but a good neighbor and his wife drop in shortly from over the way, and the circle begins to spread. Next a few young folk from the other end of the village, entering in brisker mood, find as many more chairs, set in as wedges into the periphery, to receive them also. And then a friendly sleighful of old and young, EARLY LIFE AT HOME. 23 that bave come down from tlie liill to spend an hour or two, spread the circle again, moving it still farther back from the fire ; and the fire blazes just as much higher and more brightly, having a new stick added for every guest. There is no restraint, certainly no affectation of style. They tell stories, they laugh, they sing. They are serious and gay by turns ; or the young folks go on with some play, while the fathers and mothers are discussing some hard point of theology in the minister's last sermon ; or, perhaps, the great danger coming to sound morals from the multi- plication of turnpikes and newspapers ! Meantime the good housewife brings out her choice stock of home-grown exotics, gathered from three realms : doughnuts from the pantry, hickory-nuts from the chamber, and the nicest, smoothest apples from the cellar; all which, including, I sup- pose I must add, the rather unpoetic beverage that gave its acid smack to the ancient hospitality, are discussed as freely with no fear of conse- quences. And then, as the tall clock in the corner of the room ticks on majestically towards nine, the conversation takes, it may be, a little more serious turn, and it is suggested that a very happy evening may fitly be ended with a prayer. Whereupon the circle breaks up with a reverent, congratulative look on every flice, which is itself the truest language of a social nature blessed in human fellowship." 3 24 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. CHAPTEK II. SKETCHES OF HIS GRANDMOTHER AND MOTHER, Written by Dr. Bushuell in 1874, at the request of friends. It has been my good fortune to be descended from two of the very best and noblest women, my grandmother on my father's side and my mother, I wish that by some brief trib- ute I could fitly commemorate their character and story. My grandfather, Abraham Bushnell, resided with his wife many years after their marriage at Canaan Falls, Connecticut. Whether her real name was Mary or only Molly, which was her way of signature, I do not know. When she had become the mother of twelve children and the population of the home territory was getting too large for its means of supply, they made up their minds to seek relief by emigration. A large farm was bought in the condition of forest, close under the Green Mountain range, in the town of Starksborough, Ver- mont, and to this they led forth their colony. My father, shortly to be of age, went with them to help their rough be- ginnings and get them in a way to live. Afterwards, when he had now a little family begun in Con- necticut, and I, the eldest, was about six years old, he took us up to visit the grandparents. He also took me again for an- other visit when I was twelve or thirteen years old. It was only on these two visits that I ever saw my grandmother. But her figure and manner impressed me so distinctly that I sometimes fancy I can see her now. Her height was less than five feet. Her form was slight and perfectly erect. Her step was elastic, as if she had something to do and was doing it. Her sharj) black eye seemed to smite intelligence into peo- ple and almost into things about her. She was a very decided Methodist in her religion, yet given more to ways of sound HIS SKETCH OF HIS GRANDMOTHER. 25 perception than to rliapsodies and frames of experience. She had been a member for many years of the Calvinistic Church in South Canaan, but had been so dreadfully swamped in get- ting her experience through the five-point subtleties that she nearly went distracted. But a Methodist preacher happened to come that way, and she went to hear him. His word brought light. She came out of all her troubles into a large place, where the joy of the Lord lifted her burdens and took away the horror under which she lay. Plenceforth she could only be a Methodist ; and she went out in the emigration carrying a large stock of Methodist books with her, to do what she could in laying foundations. As yet there was no public worship in the settlement. But as soon as the new log-house was ready, she undertook to make it a place for Sunday worship. She put it on her husband, a very modest, plain man, to offer a prayer. And she selected a young man, about twenty years of age, whose family she knew in Con- necticut, to read the sermon. She had no thought of his being a Christian, and he had as little of being such himself. She only knew him as a jovial, hearty youth, with enough of the constitutional fervors in him, as she thought, to make a good reader, and that determined her choice. He read well, and continually better, as he had more experience, till finally her prayers began to find large expectation in him. Advancing in this manner, she by-and-by selected a sermon in which she hoped he might preach to himself. He read with a fervor and unction that showed he was fulfilling her hope. When the little assembly broke up, she accosted him, asking him to remain a few minutes after they were gone. Then she said to him, having him by himself, " Do you know, my dear young friend, that you have God's call upon you to be a Methodist preacher?" "No," he answ^ered, promptly, " I am not even a Christian ; how can I be called to be a preacher?" "j^o matter for that," she replied, "you are called both to be a Christian and a preacher ; and one for the sake of the other, even as Paul himself was ! I think I say this by direction. And now let me request of you, on your way home, to go aside from the path into some quiet place 26 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. iu the woods, where yon will not be interrupted, and tliere let this matter he settled before God, and as he will help you." The result was that he reached home with the double call upon him both of a disciple and a minister of God. And thus began the public story of the great Bishop Iledding, one of the most talented and grandly executive men of the Methodist Episcopal Church — led into his work and office, we may say, by the counsel and prayers of his woman-bishop guide. I can think of this dear grandmother only with a certain respect that carries the sense of wonder. It is not simply that she brought up her twelve children to be men and wom- en of mature age and heads of families, sprinkled all the way between Illinois and Vermont, never one of them to falter in character or suffer any least stain of dishonor ; neither is it that the little " church in the house," first planted by her, still lives to bear witness for her ; but I have her, somehow, in a more immediate, more interior witness. Though I knew her only in my childhood, and then only on visits twice made of a few days each, she has been almost visibly with me, and going, as it were, through me by a kind of subtle waft, down to the present hour. Other persons and things of that early date are gone out, or only dimly remembered, but she remains almost visibly distinct. Whether it is that she made impres- sions on my childhood by means I do not recall, or whether, by sending me messages and verses of her own composing in the letters to m}- father, she knit into my feeling the convic- tion that she had religious expectations for me, felt but not expressed, I do not know. But somehow she has been always with me, and upon me, felt as a silent, subtly-operative pres- ence of good. Perhaps it is only my fancy ; but such fancies come by laws, and cannot be raised by everybody. At any rate, I have the very best reasons to be satisfied that she had a character so rich in good impulse and suggestion. My mother, Dotha Bushnell, whose family name was Bish- op before her marriage, was of a naturally retiring disposi- HIS ACCOUNT OF HIS MOTHER. 27 tion, and was never specially conspicuous in her storj-. She had no advantages of wealth or family connection above the level of industrious respectability. Iler field was in her fam- ily, and there it was that she won her best honors and proved the superiority which everybody felt in her character. Her slender person, her gray-blue eye and softly tinted complex- ion, indicated a certain fragility and fineness of mould, such as made her great physical endurance and tenacity the more remarkable. For it was her lot to bear severities of toil that would have reduced almost any other woman to the level of a drudge. But no token of the drudge was ever seen upon her, wdiether on her person, her manners, or her conversation. It was as if she had a double-funded nature, that, taking all the wear upon the inferior part, saved the nobler — the moral and social — from any show of infringement. She had none but a common -school education; and her well-spoken, well -written English, and her general compe- tence in subjects discussed by intelligent people, were based in that very humble outfit. Knowing nothing of society in the great- world sense, she was still never fumed or disconcerted, when thrown upon it, in a way to make her feel her inferior- ity ; but the forms and conventionalities she did not know she had the good sense to extemporize for herself, only doing it under a certain cover of modesty that made her way more interesting. Nobody meeting her in such times or conditions would be apt to imagine the hard-favored roughness of her story. She was providing and training her six children, cloth- ing her whole family in linens and woollens, spun, every thread, and made up in the house, to a great extent, also, by herself. She had a farm-and-dairy charge to administer, also the farm workmen to board, and for five or six months in a year the workmen, besides, of a homespun cloth-dressing shop. All this routine she kept m.oving in exact ofder and time, steady and clean as the astronomic year ; silent, too, I might almost say, as the year; for there was not friction enough for much noise, and scarcely enough to make the motion audible. What mortal endurance could bear such a stress of burden ! And yet she scarcely showed a look of damage under the wear of 2S LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. it, but kept the ajipcaraiiec rather of a woman of some con-' dition. The religion of the house was composite— that of the hus- band, in his rather Arminian type, received from his mother ; and that of the wife, in the Episcopal, from hers ; and that of the C^dvinistic Congregational Church, in which they were now both members, having early removed to this second place of residence, -where they drop their Episcopal connection, and take their opportunities as they find them under the vener- able, just now departing father of President Day. In this way, their first child had it always for his satisfaction, as far as he properly could, that he was Episcopally regenerated. I remember how, returning home, after second service, to liis rather late dinner, my father would sometimes let the irrita- tion of his hunger loose, in harsher words than were compli- mentary, on the tough predestinationisni or the rather over- total depravity of the sermon ; whereupon he encountered al- ways a begging -off look from the other end of the table, which, as f understood it, said, "[N^ot, for the sake of the chil- dren." It was not the Calvinism that she cared for; but she wanted the preacher himself kept in respect, for the benefit of the family. In which, unquestionably, she had the right of it. More than this, it was her nature that, lively and sharp as her excitabilities were, she could never help acting in the line of discretion. She was, in fact, the only person I have known in the close intimacy of years who never did an inconsiderate, imprudent, or any way excessive thing that recpiired to be afterwards mended. In this attribute of discretion she rose even to a kind of sublimity. I never knew her give advice that was not perfectly justified by results. Her religious duties and graces were also cast in this mood — not sinking their fiavor in it, but having it raised to an element of supe- rior, almost divine, perception. Thus praying earnestly for and with her children, she was discreet enough never to make it unpleasant to them by too great frequency. She was a good talker, and was often spoken of as the best Bible teacher in the congregation ; but she never fell into the mistake of try- ing to talk her children into religion. She spoke to them at HIS ACCOUNT OF HIS MOTHER. 29 fit times, but not nearly as frequently as many mothers do that arc far less qualified. Whether it was meant or not, there was no atmosphere of artificially pious consciousness in the liouse. And yet she was preaching all the time by her maternal sacrifices for us, scarcely to be noted without tears. Whether she had any theory for it, I do not know ; but it came to pass, somehow, that while she was concerned above all things to make her children Christian, she nndertook lit- tle in the way of an immediate divine experience, but let her- self down, for the most part, upon the level of habit, and con- descended to stay upon matters of habit, as being her human- ly allotted field, only keeping visibly an upward look of ex- pectation, that what she may so prepare in righteous habit will be a house builded for the occupancy of the Spirit. Her stress was laid thus on industry, order, time, fidelity, reverence, neatness, truth, inteUigence, prayer. And the drill of the house in these was to be the hope, in a great degree, of re- ligion. Thus, in regard to the first, industry, there was al- ways something for the smallest to do — errands to run, berries to pick, weeds to pull, earnings all for the common property, in which he thus begins to be a stockholder. So for both sexes and all sizes ; and how very close up to the gateway of God is every child brought who is trained to the consenting obedience of industry ! Indeed, there is nothing in these early days that I remember with more zest than that I did the full work of a man for at least five years before the manly age ; this, too, under no eight-hour law of j^rotective delicacy, but holding fast the astronomic ordinance in a service of from thirteen to fourteen hours. So of truth ; I do not remember ever hearing any one of the children accused of untruth. We were not always perfect in our neatness, I confess, but we had abundant opportunity to be made aware of it. This habit- discipline, I scarcely need say, came very near being a gate of religion for us all. No child of us ever strayed so far as not to find himself early in a way of probable discipleship. There was also a use made of the school that j^repared us to order and right, by the drill of the social principle, where we learned what was due to others on a larger scale, and what 30 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. detriment they might do us by their bad example. ' Our good mother liad faith in the scliool, and set herself to it on prin- ciple to be a helper of the school, as she exp)ected help from it. She passed inspection of us every morning, and kept us in good repair for it ; that is, in better, cleaner homespun than any others of the children. She sent us off early, and allowed us never to arrive late ; and as to being truant on the way, the thing was never thought of. She knew exactly what our stud- ies were, and what kind of progress we were making. The result was that more than half our school life had its springs at home, in the presidency there maintained and the approba- tions there bestowed. She learned, in this manner, the capac- ity and promise of her children ; for if the enthusiasm of study was kindled, it could not escape her. I shall never forget her look when she told us, one morning at breakfast, how she sat the night before upon my bed, and heard me parsing in sleep, word for word, a whole fable in Webster's Spelling- book, adding for commendation, with an air of amusement, that only one or two little mistakes needed to be corrected. She was able, also, in the school to compare her children with others, and form some tolerable judgment of their successes in a higher grade of privilege. She told me, thus, when little more than a child at the district school, that my father had consented to let me have a college education. Probably, too, they had heard things from my teachers that made them think I might grow to something. Is it not likely, also, that a great many parents would hear the same tiling, if only they could help the school enough by their painstaking to give it the necessary hold of respect in their children ? If it should seem to any, in this little sketch, that our fam- ily discipline was too stringent or closely restrictive, they would fall into great mistake. There was restriction in it, as there ought to be. And yet, when I look back, I scarce know where to find it. Ko hamper was ever put on our liberty of thought and choice. We w^ere allowed to have our own ques- tions, and had no niggard scruples forcea upon us. Only it was given us for a caution that truth is the best thing in the M'orld, and that nobody can afford to part with it, even for an HIS ACCOUNT OF HIS MOTHER. 31 hour. Tims we talked freedom and meant conservatism, and talked conservatism and meant freedom ; and, as we talked, we thought. There is another little chapter in our family story that we cannot afford to pass ; for it brought on the family to an ad- vanced grade in character and respect. Finding me intent on knowing something about music, my good mother procured me a book, and taught me the very little that she knew, the letters of the gamut, the key-note and how to find it, the in- tervals and times of the notes. But this was only book, and still the question was, how to put in the voice ; and this she could not tell me, for it is a matter too abstruse for anybody till after a beginning made by example. But she could sing what she had learned by the ear, and there we made a begin- ning. Presently I took to watching the notes, observing how the intervals and times kept along, and shortly began to al- most sing with us ; till, finally, I took the hint of a reverse process — that as here we had been singing airs we knew into notes we did not, so I might learn to sing airs I did not know oiit of similar notations, to be learned by practice and com- parison. This unlocked the method, and further progress af- ter this was easy. The result was that our little family grew into a very pretty choir in a few years' time, and the whole family world was changed. We had no dissipations abroad, because our vacant spaces were filled with hymns and glees and such-like humorous and sentimental pleasures. Let any- body laugh who will at the probable merit of the music ; we thought it good, because it did us good. And now, at this far-off day, after we have heard a great deal of the richest and most cultivated music, there is nothing we remember with so much delight and affection as the in-door pleasures thus enjoyed. There is yet another chapter in this recital which is even more personal to me, and in which ray dear mother bore a part that to me seems worthy of the tenderest admiration. I speak of M'hat was done, largely by her, to set me forward in a liberal education and prepare me for the Christian min- istry. Perhaps she was ambitious, though I never saw the 32 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. faintest token of it ; but I have seen a great many tokens that she loved the kingdom of Christ, and wanted nothing so much as to have her sons enlisted in its propagation. She also had the satisfaction, before her work was done, of seeing two of her sons, tlie oldest and the youngest, consecrated thus to the special service of her Master. Her first offer to me of a lib- eral education, just now referred to, I peremptorily declined; for how could an awkward country -boy think of going in among the great folk of a college. But about five years later, when brought distinctly under motives of religion, I asked the opportunity for myself. Now it was too late. The homespun was going rapidly out of use, and the business concerned in its production was growing less and less profitable. But my mother, who in this could hardly submit even to necessity, called a congress of the family, where we drew the calculation close, and made up our bill — I to wear homespun to the end, use only second-hand books, and pay the bills of my last year myself ; the family to institute a closer economy, for my sake, which they somehow found a place to do, though I never could see where. I was graduated, and then, a year afterwards, when my bills were paid, and when the question was to be decided whether I should begin the preparation of theology, I was thrown upon a most painful struggle by the very evident, quite in- contestable fact that my religious life was utterly gone down. And the pain it cost me was miserably enhanced by the dis- appointment I must bring on my noble Christian mother by withdrawing myself from the ministry. I had run to no dissipations; I had been a church -going, thoughtful man. My very difficulty Avas that I was too thoughtful, substituting thought for everything else, and expecting so intently to dig out a religion by my head that I was pushing it all the while practically away. Unbelief, in fact, had come to be my ele- ment. My mother felt the disappointment bitterly, but spoke never a M'ord of complaint or upbraiding. Indeed, I have sometimes doubted whether God did not help her to think that she knew better than I did what my becoming was to be. At the college vacation two years after my graduation, HIS ACCOUNT OF HIS MOTHER. 33 when I had been engaged in Law stndies for a year, I was ap- pointed to a tutorship. But I had decided on going into a law-ofhce in Ohio, and had no thought of taking my appoint- ment. A fortnight after reaching home, I wrote a letter to President Day, declining the appointment. As I was going out of the door, putting the wafer in my letter, I encountered my mother and told her what I was doing. Kemonstrating now very gently, but seriously, she told me that she could not think I was doing my duty. " You have settled this question without any consideration at all that I have seen. Now, let me ask it of you to suspend your decision till you have at least put your mind to it. This you certainly ought to do, and my opinion still further is" — she was not apt to make her deci- sion heavy in this manner— " that you had best accept the place." I saw at a glance where her heart w^as, and I could not refuse the postponement suggested. The result was that, going on a wedding excursion the next day with friends, I was so long occupied by it that I felt a little delicacy now in de- clining the appointment. And then it followed, as a still fur- ther result, that I was taken back to New Haven, where, part- ly by reason of a better atmosphere in religion, I was to think myself out of my over-thinking, and discover how far above reason is trust. A short matter, then, it was to find my way back into the plan of life in which I started, and which I still regarded with longings scarcely abated. And now, as I look back on the crisis here passed, it seems very much like the question whether I should finally he. No other calling but this ministry of Christ, I am obliged to feel, could have any- wise filled my inspirations and allowed me to sufficiently be. And in all these points — my education ; my exchange, with- out upbraiding, of the ministry for the law; my return to New Haven, which was to be my exchange from the law to the ministry, especially the two occasions last named — I ac- knowledge my sole indebtedness, not so much to my mother simply, as to the very remarkable something hidden in her character. Other w^omen are motherly enough, tender, self- sacrificing, faithful ; but what I owe to her, I owe to her won- derful insight and discretion. By pushing with too much argu- 34: LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. ment ; by words of upbraiding and blame ; by a teasing, over- afflicted manner ; or by requiring me to stand to my engage- ments, she could liave easily thrown me out of range and kept me fatally back from self-recovery — nay, she might have thrown me quite off the hinge of good-nature, and have so far battered the conceit of home as to leave it no longer a bond of virtue. But she went to her mark instead, sure and still as the heavens, and said just nothing, save when it was given her. Such wisdom, as I look upon it, marks a truly great character ; and it is a character not common, whether to men or women. I have only to add that she lived long enough to see some pleasant fruits of her life and to hope for more. AT YALE COLLEGE. 35 CHAPTER III. 1823-1827. AT YALE COLLEGE. In September, 1S23, when Horace Buslmell entered Yale College, he was twenty-one years old, a full-grown man, of a remarkably robust physique, and of a strong and wiry frame. His head, which was of unusual size and broad as it was high, appeared yet larger under its thick masses of black hair, which also served to heighten the ruddiness of his complexion and the brilliancy of his deep-set gray eye. Those who knew him only in later life, when the intellectual and spiritual had eclipsed the physical, can hardly imagine him to have looked as his classmates describe him in the vigorous days of his youth. His dress and manners were "homespun," not care- less, but possessed rather of a certain rude propriety. The self-confidence apparent in his bearing had its root in so much vigor and genuine power that it did not offend. It was, per- haps, fortunate for him that he had not entered college ear- lier. His growth was not of that succulent kind that ripens early. He resembled rather those hardy Xorthern fruits which mature their rich flavor and mellow their strong fibre only after a long season of out-door air and sunshine. In full and conscious possession of his very original powers, he was yet probably not in advance of his class in mental training, since his schooling had been of so meagre a kind and so often in- terrupted. But the foundations on which he was now to build w^ere good. He had sound health, a clear conscience, strong home affections, and pure tastes. He loved nature, music, and bodily activity; and deep down was the spring of that religious life which was to make its way underground through the darkness of years, and up into the light at last. 36 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. For tlie history of his college course we are indebted to friends, who have kindly furnished much of the material which follows in this chapter. In regard to his intellectual outfit, the Kev. Dr. Coleman, his college tutor, writes : " I have a very distinct recollection of Dr. Bushnell as a student in college. His examination for admission indicated a rude, original, discriminating mind — self-possessed and self-reliant, foreshadowing the future man. By the discipline of the college, these mental characteristics were only developed, matured, and wrought into greater sym- metry and fairer proportions, as the statue, rough-hewn, under successive hands receives a finer finish. In his class he soon came to the front, and retained his position without any am- bitious strife for preferment. To the contests for distinction in recitation he never condescended. He studied for a no- bler end, and by his native talent became a ready proficient in any study to which his attention was directed. He was a regular attendant on the routine and rules of life in college, not apparently as a requisition, but in conformity rather to his own sense of propriety and convenience. " While kindly to all, he had, according to my impressions, few confidential friends or intimates. He lived the life of a scholar, original, retired, peculiar, and independent, who had an interior life with which neither stranger nor friend could intermeddle — never less alone than when alone with himself and his books. Of the pupils whose acquaintance I have made during a course of instruction through fifty years, few have left on my mind impressions of their personal identity more clear and abiding. Few, very few, do I recall with more sincere respect or with affection more unimpaired by the lapse of years." His own opinion of his beginnings in college was not so flattering. He says, "My figure in college was not as good as it should have been, especially at first, grew better, and came out well ; but my religious character went down." A year or two before entering college, while still under the strong habitual infiuences of home, he had accepted, rather than wrought out, the faith of his youth. Now, for the first AT YALE COLLEGE. 37 time, the gvent untried world of thought opened before him, and his active mind launched out upon a sea of doubt. The familiar old doctrines, which habit had made to seem true, came now to the test of new standards, and, in the darkness, were challenged for their password. His outward influence, meantime, was a positive one for the right, and his classmates recognized the stanchness of his manly principle. When his roommate was forced by ill-health to leave college, another young man asked for the vacant place. He was a bright and attractive fellow, whose social gifts drew around him a rather tempting company of careless spirits, and he sought for him- self the shelter of BushnelFs maturity and well-known char- acter. The reply of the latter was decisive. " Yes, but I have come here to work ; and if you room with me, you must cut loose from these idle fellows and go to work, too." The pledge was given and firmly held. A strong mutual affection was the growth of this alliance, and lasted through long years when opportunities of intercourse were rare. The remem- brances of this well-loved chum and friend are thus tenderly expressed : — " Our college life was one of uninterrupted friendship, "We were brothers. I loved him sincerely, and I believe he as sincerely loved me. "He was a conscientious as well as a successful student. No college duties were neglected, none slighted. He was al- ways master of his task. The intellectual characteristics which so pre-eminently distinguished him in after-life, winning him a name in this country and in Europe, were apparent in the undergraduate. He thought for himself, and he thought vig- orously. There was no task to which he was called that he hesitated to attempt ; and whatever he undertook he accom- plished. There was a wonderful consciousness of power. I remember, when, on one occasion, I handed over to him the construction of a tragedy which had been assigned to me, I was struck with the confidence with which he girded himself to the task — a task which he executed with comparative ease and with great credit to himself. " His moral and social qualities were hardly less remarka- 38 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. ble than liis intellectual. lie was frank and open as the day, Xothing mean could find a lodgment in Lis breast. I never knew him to exhibit ill-temper. He was always kind, always cheerful. If there were times when I would hegin to feel touched by some good-natured witticism of his, the germ M-ould invariably flower into a hearty laugh. Witty and keen, his incisive shafts were always accompanied by so much play- ful good-humor that it was impossible to take offence. So we lived together. Dear, dear chum !" We have the reminiscences of another classmate and life- long friend in a letter from the Eev. Dr. Robert McEwen : " When I first saw Dr. Bushnell as a fellow-freshman, in 1S23, he seemed a full-grown man to me, for he was twenty-one, while I was but fifteen. He was mature every way. Even that peculiar style of writing was his then, about as fully formed as ever. He was all energy, both on the playground and in the division-room. The ambition of his later years bore him on through college from the first moment, spring- ing forward to excel in all things, physical or intellectual ; for he was behind no one of the class in athletic feats. He was the same man as an undergraduate that he has been all these later years, with the same marked characteristics, ex- cept as they have been toned down and softened, or devel- oped into truer forms by a deep religious experience. " Though he came to college a church member, he never had, through the whole four years, nor for two years after, anything positively or distinctively Christian about him, save his observance of communion services. My impression is that his consuming love of study and his high ambition, aided by a growing spirit of doubt and difficulty as to religious doc- trine, was the secret here. Yet no word of this escaped him. He undermined the faith of no man. He would have held back any boy of us all from any recreancy whatever. His conscientiousness was scrupulous, his integrity of the sternest kind, his honor the truest and noblest. Let one incident tell what Horace Bushnell, the confessor of Christ without the power of Christ, for seven years, was in conscientious care of his influence over others: AT YALE COLLEGE. 39 " Our class had a rebellion over conic sections, and all but about thirteen of us were sent home by a slow decimation of a few a week. I had been drawn out of the ranks of the rebels by my father's authority. But the ostracism I endured through those sad days was not worse than the dying by inches of men of character like Bushnell, waiting their turn for execution. One day, when passing South Entry, ]^orth Middle, lower floor, front side, corner room, a voice thrilled me : ' Mac, come in here.' It was Bushnell's. As I went in, his wan face stamped itself on me for life. He said, ' Mae, I have to say to you that you have done your duty to your father in backing out. Do not mind what the fellows say. I am in for it, and I shall go through. But you have done right. Hold your head up.' He was just the man that could not have failed to do his own heart as much good as he did mine by that act. How the boy did thank the man for that word ! There w\as not another than Horace Bushnell that could have said it." Lately Dr. McEwen referred to this circumstance again in a letter to Mrs. Bushnell : " That was the finest incident in my knowledge of a certain nobleness in that glorious man that distinguished him from other men — an incident I am glad to have in my possession, as my own, of a man I was proud to call, what he made himself, my particular friend. I had the advantage of a boy plucked out by his father's hand, and my manly classmate took pains to comfort me with words of cheer. He was the only one that did it, or would have thought of doing it. There was nothing of nullification or sedition in Horace Bushnell, not a spark ; his moral sense led always to higher modes of redress than those." It is right and necessary to explain here how one so obedi- ent to law came to join in a college rebellion. The explana- tion is to be found in the fact that the Faculty, or certain members of it, had not, as the students thought, kept faith with them. The class of '27 were studying conic sections, and had permission, in the regular course of studj^, to omit the corollaries, with the clear understanding that they would not be examined on them. When it came to the examinations, 4 40 LITE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. however, the corollaries were included in the matter for ex- amination, without due notice or opportunity for preparation. This course provoked an indignant protest from the class. Bushnell looked upon it as an unfair and oppressive use of authority. Fully aware of the risk to his future, but with his uncompromising sense of justice kindled to white heat, he joined his class in their revolt, l^or, though he approved the young friend who had yielded to his father's authority, did he feel ashamed of his own course, or regret it, except on pru- dential grounds. lie said in after-life that, though he thought a college rebellion a very boyish method of redress, he was still of tlie opinion that in this case there had been an unusual provocation, and that he could not, even in retrospect, con- demn what he had done. It was in the excitement of this rebellion that he was first able to command himself in public speaking. In college ex- ercises of elocution, which seemed to him mock orator}'^, and therefore aimless and unmeaning, he had never been able to go through with a declamation. The situation was unreal, and therefore unbearably awkward. His memory failed him in his embarrassment, and then he would " put his hands in his pockets and sit down." J^ow, having something real to say, he had no difficulty in saying it, and addressed his fellow-stu- dents with ease and power. Pie was afterwards a leader of debates in his college society, and wrote upon the j^olitical subjects of the day, such as the Missouri Compromise, and the questions " Ought the President of the United States to be chosen directly by the people ?" and " Ought a court, in its decisions, to regard the former character of a criminal ?" The subjects of his themes are rarely metaphysical and never the- ological. One is upon " Home," another on " Dancing," an- other on "Jack Phosphorus" — a satirical character -sketch. One upon " Ambition " begins thus : " It is as natural for man to wish for an imperishable name as for an eternal existence. The language of his heart is, I can neither die and cease to be, nor die and be forgotten. The flowers that mark the place of my mouldering shall wither and die, and the tear that is shed at my departure shall dry up in its fountain, yet AT YALE COLLEGE. 41 I will leave behind me a name that shall survive and be re- membered." This seems to have been one of the earliest of his compositions, and it is interesting to know that, at so early a time, he had this feeling concerning the future. In an essay on the subject of " Genius," he enforces what was a favorite idea with him, that the use which a man makes of his powers is of greater consequence than his original endowments. He concludes by saying, " If I were to be asked what are the first, second, and third requisites to become a genius, I would reply, in the manner of Demosthenes, ' Application, application, ap- plication.' " The great orator seems to have been a favorite model, and is often alluded to in these early writings. The style in which they are written is rather formal and abrupt. There is often a witty comparison, here and there an original and singular turn of expression. The manner of announcing a belief or sentiment is invariably bold and earnest. He said himself that the tendency of his mind at that day was towards the Paleyite taste and style, adding, " I loved a good deal the prudential, cold view of things." His favorite studies through- out his college course, however, were scientific, and not psy- chological. He devoted himself especially to chemistry, and did well in it. Geology and astronomy were also deeply in- teresting to him. His recreations were of the simplest. Never going into what is called society, and living, in fact, a good deal alone, he found one of his chief pleasures in the active sports of the playground. Tliere his classmates remember him as an ath- letic leader, and there he won the free-and-easy sobriquet of " Bully Bush." He enjoyed heartily whatever he did, and pursued his objects with an intense zest and relish. His high- est delight was in music. He joined the college choir, and gave it the support of his enthusiasm and of his powerful voice. In his junior year, the music of the college chapel having fallen below the ordinary standard, a committee of three, of whom he was one, was appointed to take the matter in hand and revive an interest in music. They organized the Beethoven Society, and Mr. Haines, their first president, writes, "Bushnell did the principal work, framing the constitution 42 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. and proposing the name." Twenty-six years later lie deliv- ered before this same society, on the occasion of the opening of their new organ, an address on " Religious Music," from which we shall make some extracts at the proper time. The society still lives, and has been useful. In a letter to Mrs. Bushnell, the Rev. George Bushnell gives these slight reminiscences of his brother's college vacations spent at home. " I regret that my recollections of my brother stop short of liis boyhood days, and that they present so indistinct a picture. The very farthest point to which they reach is his college va- cations, when he was a man full-grown, and I a boy of six or eight years, and, as you know, he was never much at Jiis early home after that. Those vacations made an era in my young life, and not much less significance had they in the eyes of all the family. In one respect, however, I think it likely I had most occasion to remember them ; for, while I was not old enough to share to the full the intellectual life w^hich his com- ing awakened in the household, I was old enough to have a conscience, and had faults enough to require chastisement, and, though kind and, as I thought, sometimes princely in his gen- erosit}^, no other human being had such power to reinforce the claims of truth and duty upon me as he, and that, for the most part, by his simple presence, " What a strong and lithe creature he was ! "What feats of agility and skill could he execute upon the turning-bar and with the discus ! How grand and spirited was the psalmody of the family and the church when he took it in hand ! And what a new world of sentiment was that which he discovered to us, through pieces of music and words, all neatly copied into books for home use by his own hand ! The eagerness with which his coming was looked for, and the family scenes in which his was the central figure; the open-eyed wonder and almost awe of the youngest ; the animation and admiration of the older children ; the pride and half -deference of the par- ents, are quite vivid to this day. One or two occasions I re- member, even to the words used. My meeting with my big brother on one of the earliest of his vacations was on this AT YALE COLLEGE. 43 wise: I had come home in the evening rather crestfallen from some show. Detecting in me, at a glance, a dissatisfied and culprit feeling, he called me to him, inquiring where I iiad been and how I had enjoyed it, and, getting replies cor- responding to the feeling of the evening rather than to that of the morning's anticipations, he asked, ' Why did you go to such a thing as that ?' ' Because everybody was going,' was the reply. ' And that, I suppose, was what theij went for. The next time,' he added, ' that you see the whole world doing something, be sure not to go with them, unless you have some better reason.' " A gentleman (I think he was a clergyman) dined with the family one day when my brother was at home. It was during the prevalence of the cholera. The whole party was very sober, and this gentleman, in particular, ate not so much with gladness and thankfulness as with exceeding daintiness and apprehensiveness of death in the pot. Succotash was one of the dishes which he refused, and rather cautioned the fam- ily against. My brother was, if possible, more jubilant than usual, and especially devoted to his favorite succotash ; to the horror, at last, of the visiting brother, who had much to say of the wisdom of a spare diet, and of eating only such things as we were sure would agree with us. ' No, sir,' said my brother, ' if a thing disagrees with you, eat it again. That is my rule. It has to agree with me,not I with it; otherwise my appetite would get to be as vicious as old Pomp ' — a great, lazy family- horse, given to shying on the slightest possible occasions, to the no small risk of his rider or driver. I do not suppose he treated himself quite so heroically as the literal interpre- tation of his rule would imply; but it furnished a good il- lustration of his habitual heartiness and thoroughness, and of an indisposition, and perhaps an actual incapacity, for adapt- ing himself to the timorousnesses and petty weaknesses of others. " No account of my brother's vacations can pretend to com- pleteness which does not refer to his fishing, which chiefly occupied him at such times, and gave the largest zest and ut- most restfuluess to his home visits. For shooting he had no 44 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. relisli whatever, for the reason, perhaps, that it did not allow that quiet enjoyment of nature he so much loved, and fur- nished too little employment for the imagination. Fishing, with him, was not lounging, nor a piece of shabby work, but involved early rising, a rigorous and exact preparation, a ready invention, and almost always a decisive victory. The whole region round about our early home was thoroughly explored. The finest birch-rods it could furnish were sought, carefully peeled, and put under shelter to season, and with such appliances as to insure the utmost lightness and pliancy consistent with strength. And if, in the height of the sport, any unforeseen emergency arose, it was surprising to see with what readiness and coolness his invention supplied the condi- tions of success. Never but once have I known him to utter- ly fail in the sport he so thoroughly loved, and dexterously practised, and the occasion has been to me quite as memora- ble as any other. Though our bait was of the best, yet, for some unexplained reason, we toiled the whole morning and caught nothing. I^ot even the smallest fish would take the hook. At first we were amused at our non-success. One of the party, I dare say, soon became querulous and impatient ; but the big brother worked on silently, with a look at first puzzled, tlien anxious and solemn. At length, as the hot sun reached the meridian, he turned our boat towards the shore, and, without a word, but with long, vigorous strokes full of meaning, he drew it under the shade of trees overhanging the most beautiful spot, I thought, I had ever seen. Sitting in this cool shade, and obviously drinking in, with keenest relish, the beauty of the scene, the puzzled, solemn look gave place to one of the most positive and satisfying pleasure. After a time, he began slowly unrolling our lunch, and setting it forth in most tempting arraj^, before an appetite which needed no special incentive. Still he could not relish food, but began breaking it up, and throwing it into the water by the boat's side. At length he said, with the air of an old prophet, ' Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.' Then, as if awaking from a revery to the sus- picion of having made a false impression, he said, ' It is plain AT YALE COLLEGE. 45 we shall not get one fish to-day ' — for not one had appeared, in response to this last invitation — ' and I don't propose to keep this up for many days. The Bible is not meant to en- courage a blind faith. " Cast thy bread on the waters," is superstition. Put grain, life-bearing grain, the material of bread, for bread itself, and the meaning is good. Casting grain on the overflowed land is sensible, an act of faith which despises present appearances, and it shall eventually have its reward. But fishing to-day is but casting our hread on the waters, a superstition to be shunned.' " The following bright story is from the pen of his classmate N. P. Willis. It was published in the Home Journal, in IS-iS, in connection with a notice of Dr. Bushnell's discourse, just delivered at Cambridge, before a Unitarian audience : — " Seniors and classmates at Yale, in 1827 we occupied the third story back, North College, North Entry— Bushnell in the northwest corner. As a student, our classmate and neighbor was a black-haired, earnest- eyed, sturdy, carelessly dressed, athletic, and independent good fellow, popular, in spite of being both blunt and exemplary. We have seen him blit once since those days, and then we chanced to meet him on the Rhine, in the year 1845, we think — both of us voyagers for health. But to our story. The chapel bell was ringing us to prayers one summer morning ; and Bushnell, on his punctual way, chanced to look in at the opposite door, where we were — with the longitudinal, straight come-and- go which we thought the philosophy of it — strapping our razor. (The beard was then a new customer of ours.) The pending shave was not to release us in time for more than the tutor's amen ; but that was not the text of our classmate's sermon. ' Why, man,' said he, rushing in and seizing the instrument without ceremony, 'is that the way you strap a razor?' He grasped the strap in his other hand, and we have remember- ed his tone and manner almost three hundred and sixty-five times a year ever since, as he threw out his two elbows, and showed us how it should be done. ' By drawing it from heel to point both ways,' said he, ' thus— and thus — you make the two cross frictions correct each other;' and, dropping the razor with this brief lesson, he started on an overtaking trot to the chapel, the bell having stopped ringing as he scanned the improved edge with his equally sharp gray eye. Now, will any one deny that these brief and excellent directions for making the roughness of opposite sides contribute to a mutual fine edge seem to have been 'the tune' of the Doctor's sermon to the Unitarians? Our first hearing of the discourse was precisely as we have narrated it, and we thank the 46 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. Doctor for most edifying comfort out of the doctrine, as we trust his later hearers will after as many years." A physical experience, which Bushnell described in later years as a singular one, occurred during the period of hard work preparatory to his graduation. After many consecutive days and nights of hard study, he went to bed very late one night towards the close of the term, exhausted, but wide awake. After a few moments of repose, he felt as if his body were rising and floating in the air. Grasping at the bed be- neatli him to reassure himself, he M^as startled by his inability to feel it, and by degrees became aware that sensation was gone. He could not even by touch or feeling convince himself that he was in the body ; and still, as he imagined, rising and floating in the air, he began to believe that he was dead, and that tliis was his voyage to the world of spirits. This con- dition lasted, according to his impression, for the space of an hour or two. The sense of touch returned by degrees, and his body, as he became conscious of it, was numb. Soon, however, unpleasant sensations vanished, and he fell asleep. The incident is slight, and yet is not without significance. His mind worked in a very intense and exciting way, and the momentum acquired was great enough to send him over the boundary of consciousness. His mental poise was finely ad- justed ; but for that very reason, perhaps, the more easily disturbed. In later years, even the slight fever which accom- panies a cold would sometimes set his mind wandering. To a brain which worked like a great engine under high press- ure, it was dangerous to add more fuel of any kind. He graduated in the summer of 1827. His commencement oration (on " Some Defects of Modern Oratory") attracted at- tention outside of college, and was spoken of as a promising one. It led to his subsequent engagement on the Journal of Commerce. TEACHING IN NORWICH. 47 CHAPTER IV. 1827-1832. SCHOOL-TEACHING.— EDITORSHIP.— STUDY OF LAW.— TUTOR- SHIP.—LAW STUDIES AGAIN.— RENEWAL OF RELIGIOUS LIFE. —THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL. After leaving college, he went, in September, to Norwich, Conn., to teach a school. He once said that it was the only undertaking in which he had not succeeded better than he expected. The employment was uncongenial to him; he had no special fitness for it, and it was, besides, only a temporary expedient, not a pursuit followed for its own sake. A friend writes us that she once heard him say that "he liked to do anything better than to teach school — he would rather lay stone-wall anytime;" and that when some one asked him if he did not once teach a school in Norwich, he replied at once, " I ran one out there in a little time." She adds that she has heard her friends there speak of his popularity in society, and especially of his love for music. During college days, he had mingled in no society outside the college walls ; but in Nor- wich, for the first time, we find him receiving the hospitalities of refined and cultivated homes. In his letters to friends, we meet with allusions to this new social life, which show his amusement at his own figure in it. His mother writes him gravely, in answer to some joke he had passed on himself in a home letter : " In your next letter let us know whether you take as much care to keep jonr heart right as to convert yourself into a gentleman." Few letters are left belonging to this period. The two following, written to a classmate, are given, not so much for their intrinsic interest as because they are the only account we have from him of the winter in Nor- wich : — 48 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. To Cortlandt Van Rensselaer. Norwich, November 5, 1827. Deak YAJf, — Your present * came to hand a few days since. I should like to return it in something of a similar kind ; but this part of the country does not abound in rare productions of a literary description. I shall not vex myself, however, on this account ; but, since the economists have established the principle that it matters not in what your property consists, provided it has a positive value or utility, rest satisfied with proffering you my sincere thanks to the full amount. By the way, the piece reads rather better than I expected. It is at least a great effc/rt. You have probably observed the manner in which he ushers in his second poetical quotation. To wind up a flowing sentence, comes " and, ah ! who," etc. What a succession ! probably intended to represent the panting of the aspirant, who runs, as you may have seen a dog run, with his mouth wide open. It had the effect upon me, when I came to it, to throw my jaws wide enough asunder, but unfortu- nately it was — a gape. All this I should not have mentioned, had it not given me a most hearty laugh here alone. If you wish to know how I like my present situation, I can tell you, in a few words, that the transition from the literary ease and cheerfulness of college to the petty vexations of the pedagogue is rather humiliating. I have ceased wondering that Demos, should attack yEschines on this score. Aside from my employment, everything goes well enough. The Norwich people are extremely hospitable. I hardly know whether you will believe me, but it is a fact, that I have late- ly taken — now and then — to visiting the ladies. I wish I could see your Honor sometimes, and hold a real South-entry talk for an hour or two. It would be quite as entertaining to me as fashionable chit-chat. It would seem like home again. My resource at present is in books. When I can sit down alone in my room and spend the evening in reading, time goes very pleasantly. I read a great deal — write a little. I find * A copy of an article written by a classmate. MENTAL UNREST. 49 myself the happier, the nearer my employments to those of college. I have borrowed the " Spectator." There is no book ou earth so complete a substitute for literary conversation. He is sentimental, learned, grave, witty, humorous, just like my old companions. In whatever mood I am, I can find something in it to keep me company. To the Same. December 23, 1837. . . . What think you of the Presidential election ? I think there is 'quite too much iniquity in these political shuffles. I was quite struck the other day by a remark of an elderly gen- tleman on this subject. He said that " from the moment of his leaving college to the present hour, he had been gradually losing his respect for great names." Eeal merit has very lit- tle to do with political elevation. That one has outstripped another in the race does not mean that he is more worthy of the nation's confidence, but that he has been more successful in his schemes of ambition. The world is filled with conten- tion and tumult, not to determine vjJiat, but toJw. shall govern. ... I have just finished the life of Otis by Tudor. He was a noble fellow. Van. The men of that day had a force in tread- ing dowm this hypocrisy, this double-dealing, which has so far got the better of their posterity. The contest, with them, seems not to have been for place or power, but for excellence. They were men of real virtue ; they labored, not to pull down one set of men and raise another in its stead, but to pluck Op- pression from her seat and set up Justice in her place. En- gaged in such a cause, it is not wonderful that they exhibited talents superior to any among us ; for the mind that is backed by righteous principle has a double power and efficiency. The second quarter of my school commences Thursday next. I think it doubtful whether I continue longer than to the close of it, if I get released. I don't make a very good pedagogue, I fear, though I have heard no complaints. It re- quires too much patience and forbearance, for my composi- tion. I should like to hear from Mac, or from any of the fel- lows who feel sufficient interest in my concerns to write me. 50 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. T am glad to hear that Yale is thriving so finely. " Incedat Regina." The concerns of this place would not be interesting to you. You will find the products of my poor brain, I fear, but little better. Yours forever, Hoeace Busuxell. These letters, taken in their connectimis, betray a mental uneasiness, restlessness, and discontent unusual to him. The}'- have not the genuine ring of his later letters, and we may con- clude from them and other indications that he was now in precisely that mental state which he has described as that of a large class of young thinkers. " Their mind is ingenuous, it may be, and their habit is not over-speculative, certainly not perversely speculative ; they only have a great many thoughts, raising a great many questions, that fly, as it were, loosely across their mental landscape, and leave no trace of their pas- sage— that is, none which they themselves perceive ; and yet they wake up by-and-by, startled by the discovery that they believe nothing. They cannot anywhere put down their foot and say, ' Here is truth.' And it is the greatest mystery to them that they consciously have not meant to escape from the truth, but have, in a certain sense, been feeling after it. They have not l^een ingenious in their questions and argu- ments. They have despised all tricks of sophistry ; they have only been thinking and questioning, as it seemed to be quite right they should. And yet, somehow, it is now become as if all truth were gone out, and night and nowhere had the world. The vacuity is painful, and they are turned to a wrestling with their doubts, which is only the more painful that they wrestle, as it were, in mid-air, unable to so much as touch ground anywhere." * This we must take as the true picture of his own inward life for a period of several years preceding and following the year 1827. Early in the winter, a college friend had written, offering liim a letter of introduction to the editor of the Journal of * " Sermons ou Living Subjects," p. 167. EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL OF COMMERCJE. 51 Commerce, a newly established Kew York daily, adding; by way of explanation, " He was pleased with your piece at Com- mencement, and that first caused him to think your assistance would be advantageous to him." The oifer came too late ; the engagement for the winter was made, and Bushnell could only write, in answer, "Your offer would have been seized with avidity had it come in season. As it was, it made me wretchedly discontented for a few days. It would have served me better had it offered less, though I am as grateful for it as if it had really been of service." And so the winter wore away, uneasily it appears, among uncertainties as to future prospects, the consciousness of latent powers not half em- ployed, inward doubts and perplexities, and the unsatisfied cravings of a large ambition. But in February the opportu- nity which had seemed lost came to him again. Mr. Maxwell wrote, inviting him to become associate editor with himself in the Journal of Commerce. He did not hesitate in his de- cision, but went directly home, thence across the country to PoughkeejDsie, and down the Hudson by steamer at night. He arrived in l^ew York on the last morning of February — a warm fog, through which the city loomed dimly, offering to his fancy a type of his own mental obscurity, and of the mistiness of his prospects. He entered at once upon his new duties. Mr. Maxwell was the leading editor ; but, his health failing, he was obliged to be absent most of the year, so that the weight of responsibil- ity and work which fell upon the junior editor was a heavy one. Lewis Tappau was one of the proprietors of the paper, and represented the rest in the management as ofhce editor ; but practically the charge of the office was left to Bushnell. Mr. Tappan allowed his young subordinate entire liberty in the expression of his own opinions, even upon points where they differed, as, notably, in the matter of free-trade ; and their re- lations in the office, where they were closely associated, were of the pleasantest kind. The manly force and generosity of Mr. Tappan were such qualities as Bushnell was sure to appreciate. Journalism was not an easier profession then than now. The difficulty of obtaining news in those days of no-telegraph 52 . LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. M'as mncli greater. The foreign news was brought by pilot- boats to the Narrows, where a mounted messenger received it and brought it post-liaste to the city. It was Bushnell's duty to prepare it for tlie morning's issue; and this work often kept him up all niglit, or until four or five in the morning. He would then rush to his lodgings, to catch a nap before the eight-o'clock breakfast, and back straightway to the office and the writing of editorials. These editorials, on a wide range of subjects, and especially on free-trade, attracted attention, and were considered brilliant in the journalism of the day. He had the quick eye for a telling point so invaluable to a newspaj^er man. It was owing to an article of his that the saying of Sam Patch, " Some things can be done as well as others," was caught up and became famous. In this work, which was also the best of education, he was busy for ten months, or up to the 1st of January, 1829. The paper was then bought by Mr. Hale, who proposed to him to become a partner in it, and its political and literary editor. But he had found it, he said, " a terrible life," in which he did not wish to invest his future. He therefore withdrew, and returned to New Haven to enter the Law School, having saved from his salary of one hundred dollars per month enough to support him till the following autumn. He had come to the city a student, ignorant of life. He went back to the quiet college life with a man's knowledge of men and business, his pulses quickened, his range of vision widened, the objects of life and ambition standing clear and j^ositive before him. The following summer, having spent a half-year in the Law School, he went home again to say farewell. His plans were made to go to some Western city, there to enter a law office and work his way into the arena of politics. He was twenty-seven years old, had tested his powers, and gained some knowledge of public life in his newspaper experience, and now felt that he had chosen his course in life on well-considered grounds. It was not strange, then, that, receiving, while at home, an invita- tion to become a tutor in Yale College, he gave the matter no very serious consideration, but wrote declining the proposal. TUTOR IN YALE COLLEGE. 53 The reader lias already beard from him how his mother's gentle influence, interi^osed at this point, led him to delay and finally to reconsider his decision. The letter he had been about to send was destroyed, and another of acceptance writ- ten. Thus was his life, unconsciously to him, swayed by the faith hidden in his mother's heart. She knew him better than he knew himself, and turned him to the higher purpose he did not recognize. The autumn of 1829 finds him once more in Isew Haven, and this time as a tutor. Two of his former classmates and intimates, Henry Durant (afterwards founder of the College of California) and Eobert McEwen, divided with him the charge of the freshman class, which happened to be a large one. The first care of Bushnell was to weed out of the class a few incorrigibly bad boys, whose influence was sure to be in- jurious to the rest. They were sent home, and the favorable effect on the remainder of the class seemed to justify the meas- ure. He could be gentle, however, in his dealings with young offenders. One evening some of the freshmen, in a boyish escapade, carried off a large number of business signs, which they secreted in one of their rooms on the lower floor of the South College. Bushnell, passing through the campus short- ly after, found one of these young fellows, overtaken of Bac- chus, prostrate and unable to reach his room. The tutor car- ried him thither, and found the room lined with the stolen signs. But he took good care of him, and, mercifully regard- ing this as a first offence, made no report of the affair. Thus meting justice and mercy, he made his whole term of service run smoothly and successfully. One of his most difiicult duties was that of conducting in his turn the daily prayers in chapel. His own faith was so undefined as to make him feel doubtful of his influence over others, and of his duty in using it. During his tutorship he was also in the Law School, improving the unexpected oppor- tunity of further training in his chosen profession. For a more complete account of this period we refer to an interesting letter from Dr. McEwen, addressed to Mrs. Bush- nell : 54 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. "... In the two years of our co-tutorsliip there were but a few marked facts. As to the questions you raise, my impressions are quite distinct. He was more than ordinarily successful as a teacher in college, imparting the same manly, enthusiastic spirit of inquiry and investigation so characteristic of him- self. On this account he was well fitted to be an instructor of young men rather than of mere schoolboys. He was just one of those tutors of w^hom it might be said as to his division of students that they literally ' sat at his feet.' His general influence corresponded to this particular cast of character as an ofiicer of college. Though negatively religious, his moral bearing was most positively of the highest order. His purity and integrity were felt to be impregnable, and he was remark- able as combining a sternness of discipline with a certain gen- erosity of procedure in practical cases. There was strength in all he did, and a force of influence that came of the rug- gedness of his intellectual and physical deportment ; for it is to be borne in mind that he was then, as he had ever been, one of our athletes both as a student and in ofiice. His posi- tion mentally, from the first day I knew him, was, in its chief features of strength and beauty, the same, essentially and in general development, that has so marked his after-life. It seems to me that his style of conception and exj)ression as a writer was already stamped, in his freshman year, with the image and superscrijDtion of his latest day. As a man^ indeed, he came to college all made, and in no respect more decided- ly than as a thinker and writer. There was in him then just what made him so unique as Horace Bushnell, that imagina- tive, poetic coinage of idea and phrase and illustration so un- usually blended with a rugged argumentation in the treatment of subjects. He was at once the most j)iignacious and the most gleesorae of disputants, culling flow^ers while he hurled stones and demolished obstacles in his upward path ; for he was always climbing and in the steepest places. You ask for some distinct impression of mine in regard to his manner in public prayers in those years of ofiicial duty. Of course, he took his turn. His performance, as I remember it, was not free-hearted, neither w\as it dry. It must have been exceed- HIS COURSE DURING A RELIGIOUS REVIVAL. 55 ingly trying to liis feelings ; as, indeed, all those years of his peculiar position as a jirofessedly religious man, from his en- trance into college, must have been a conflict and a crucifix- ion. How his sense of obligation and character endured the strain is to me a problem and a wonder; for he never the whole time had any positive relations in anything he said or did to what was distinctively Christian, yet never a lisp escaped him derogatory to his high profession. "Was that period with him like some prehistoric, geologic stage of nature to a com- mon winter of the yearly seasons, a deeper, longer, more rad- ical preparation for the hour of habitableness and fruitful- ness ? Why not in the soul's cosmogony, as in the dull earth, a long, slow chaos, sometimes of grace, too, and not of nature only ?" The labors of the tutor and those of preparation for the bar went on thus for a year and a half hand in hand. In the winter of 1831 his two years of law study were completed. He had passed his examination, and was ready for admission to the bar. One more step forward, and he would have fair- ly entered npon that path which he had marked out for him- self. But at this point nnlooked-for influences changed all his plans and purposes. The winter was marked in Yale College by a religious re- vival. For the external history of this revival, so far as it concerned Horace Bushnell, we are once more indebted to Dr. McEwen. "... What, then, in this great revival was this man to do, and what was to become of him ? Here he was in the glow of his ambition for the future, tasting keenly of a new success — his flne passage at arms in tlie editorial chair of a New York daily, ready to be admitted to the bar, successful and popular as a college instructor ; but all at sea in doubt, and default religiously. That baptism of the Holy Ghost and of flre com- passed him all about. When the work was at its height, he and his division of students, who fairly worshipped him, stood unmoved apparently when all beside were in a glow. The band of tutors had established a daily meeting of their own, and all were now united in it but Bushnell. What days of 5 56 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. travail and wondering those were over Lim! Kone dare ap- proach him. He stood far more than joWmws inter ]jare8 among alL Only Henry Diirant tried carefully and cautious- ly to hit some joint in the armor. But even he, though free in his confidence, seemed to make no advance. When, all at once, the advance came bodily and voluntarily from Bushnell himself. Said he to Durant, 'I must get out of this woe. Here am I what I am, and these young men hanging to me in their indifference amidst tliis universal earnestness on every side.' And we were told what he said he was going to do — to invite these young men to meet him some evening in the week, M'hen he would lay bare his position and their own, and declare to them his determination and the decision they ought with him to make for themselves. Perhaps there never was pride more lofty laid doAvn voluntarily in the dust than when Horace Bushnell thus met those worshippers of his. The re- sult was overwhelming. Tliat division-room was a Bochim, a place of weeping. "When, then, he came at once into the confidences of the daily meeting of his fellow-tutors, was it not Paul that was called Saul, and was there ever such a little child as he was ? On one occasion he came in, and, throwing himself with an air of abandonment into a seat, and thrusting both hands through his black, bushy hair, cried out desperately, 3'et half- laughingly, ' O men ! what shall I do with these arrant doubts I have been nursing for years ? When the preacher touches the Trinity and when logic shatters it all to pieces, I am all at the four winds. But I am glad I have a heart as well as a head. My heart wants the Father ; my heart wants the Son ; my heart wants the Holy Ghost — and one just as much as the other. My heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me, and I mean to hold by my heart. I am glad a man can do it when there is no other mooring, and so I answer my own question — what shall I do? But that is all I can do yet.' These incidents, I may say, have held me for my dear friend Bushnell w^hen his day of question in other minds came ; and I understood, in that last incident or germinal fact, his Christ in Theology." EECOLLECTIONS OF COLLEGE FUIENDS. 57 Another of his college friends has said, " As might be ex- pected, Buslmell threw all his manhood into his new life. He labored at once to bring his pupils into the same purposes with himself. I remember well how patiently he reasoned, and how affectionately he pleaded, with one of the most gift- ed young men I ever knew, who had been as bold in his doubts, and more bold in his denials than himself, and withal grossly wicked in his life." One who was then a pupil of Bushnell's wrote lately to his sister, knowing that she would share his interest in this sub- ject, " I cannot but think of him now as he seemed to me when I was permitted to sit at his feet as a learner. He was a very handsome man, classical and sharp-cut in his features, of superior dignity, and yet winsome in his manners. JS'ext to old President Day, perhaps he enjoyed more popularity than any officer in the college. He also had a high reputa- tion as a writer. He was a man of great independence of character and thought, as I remember him ; and in 1831, W'hen the whole college came under the power of truth in a signal manner, he shot clear beyond his doubts about the truth of Christianity, if he had any, and came with a bound into clear sunlight, and with a noble Christian manhood took his place with Christ. His history from that day rose in grandeur and development mitil it culminated in glory," Such was the outward story of the most important crisis in his life. If we study its points, we find him not carried away by the superficial excitement of a revival, but moved rather by the sense of his own aloofness, and by the great re- sponsibility for others which his influence over his pupils had given him. Beginning at the plain stand-point of conscience and duty, to which, in darkest hours of doubt, he had ever stood faithful, he asks himself this test question (which he afterwards gave to others as a guide), " Have I ever consented to be, and am I really now, in the right, as in principle and supreme law ; to live for it ; to make any sacrifice it will cost me ; to believe everything that it will bring me to see ; to be a confessor of Christ as soon as it appears to be enjoined upon me ; to go on a mission to the world's end if due conviction 58 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. sends me ; to change my occupation for good conscience' sake ; to repair whatever wrong 1 have done to another ; to be hum- bled, if I should, before mj worst enemy ; to do complete jus- tice to God, and, if I could, to all worlds — in a word, to be in wholly right intent, and have no mind but this forever f' This, the simple desire to be and do right, was the first step. By the side of the moral question intellectual doubts appeared nnimportant, and were deferred. He afterwards used the his- tory of tliis experience as an illustration in a sermon " On the Dissolving of Doubts," which was first delivered in Yale Col- lege Chapel : — " Suppose that one of us, clear of all the vices, having a naturally ac- tive-minded, inquiring habit, occupied largely with thoughts of religion; never meaning to get away from the truth, but, as he thinks, to find it, only resolved to have a free mind, and not allow himself to be car- ried by force or fear, or anything but real conviction — suppose that such a one, going on thus, year by year, reading, questioning, hearing all the while the Gospel in which he has been educated, sometimes impressed by it, but relapsing shortly into greater doubt than before, finds his relig- ious beliefs wearing out and vanishing, he knows not how, till, finally, he seems to really believe nothing. He has not meant to be an atheist ; but he is astonished to find that he has nearly lost the conviction of God, and cannot, if he would, say with any emphasis of conviction that God exists. The world looks blank, and he feels that existence is getting blank also to itself. This heavy charge of his possibly immortal being oppresses him, and he asks again and again, 'What shall I do with it?' His hunger is complete, and his soul turns every way for bread. His friends do not satisfy him. His walks drag heavily. His suns do not rise, but only climb. A kind of leaden aspect overhangs the world. Till, finally, pacing his chamber some day, there comes up suddenly the ques- tion, ' Is there, then, no truth that I do believe ? Yes, there is this one, now that I think of it : there is a distinction of right and wrong that I never doubted, and I sec not how I can; I am even quite sure of it.' Then forthwith starts up the question, 'Have I, then, ever taken the principle of right for my law ? I have done right things as men speak ; have I ever thrown my life out on the principle to become all it requires of me? No, I have not, consciously I have not. Ah ! then, here is some- thing for me to do ! No matter Avhat becomes of my questions — nothing ought to become of them if I cannot take a first princijjle so inevitably true, and live in it.' The very suggestion seems to be a kind of revela- tion ; it is even a relief to feel the conviction it brings. ' Here, then,' he says, ' will I begin. If there is a God, as I rather hope there is, and very DISSOLVING OF DOUBTS. 59 dimly believe, he is a right God. If I have lost him in wrong, perhaps I shall find him in right. Will he not help me, or, perchance, even be dis- covered to me ?' Now the decisive moment is come. He drops on his knees, and there he prays to the dim God, dimly felt, confessing the dim- ness for honesty's sake, and asking for help that he may begin a right life. He bows himself on it as he prays, choosing it to be henceforth his unalterable, eternal endeavor. " It is an awfully dark prayer, in the look of it ; but the truest and best he can make, the better and the more true that he puts no orthodox col- ors on it ; and the prayer'and the vow are so profoundly meant that his soul is borne up into God's help, as it were, by some unseen chariot, and permitted to see the opening of heaven even sooner than he oj)ens his eyes. He rises, and it is as he if had gotten wings. The whole sky is luminous about him. It is the morning, as it were, of a new eternity. After this all troublesome doubt of God's reality is gone, for he has found him ! A being so profoundly felt must inevitably be. " Now, this conversion, calling it by that name, as we properly should, may seem, in the apprehension of some, to be a conversion /o;- the Gos- pel, and not in it or ht/ it — a conversion by the want of truth more than by the power of truth. But that will be a judgment more superficial- than the facts permit. No, it is exactly this : it is seeking first the king- dom of God and his righteousness — exactly that, and nothing less. And the dimly groping cry for hell), what is that but a feeling after God, if, haply, it may find him, and actually finding him not far ofi"? And what is the help obtained Ijut exactly the true Christ-help ? And the result, what, also, is that but the kingdom of God witliiu, righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost ? " There is a story lodged in the little bedroom of one of these dormi- tories, which I pray God his recording angel may note, allowing it never to be lost." However irregular the forms of this conversion according to some theological standards, there can be no doubt of its reality as a conversion in the original sense of that word. It was a complete turning - about of the life. It changed not only the outward purpose (for he gave up the law for the Gospel), but the very fibre and tissue of his being. No, it did not change, but, rather, breathed into his moral frame the breath of an immortal life and vigor, vitalized and inspired his intellect, gave luminous insight in place of " desolating doubts," and set him free. The effect was not to neutralize, but to heighten, his individuality. If he was before Horace Bushnell, he was doubly Bushnell now. No salient point, no 60 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. rugged, racy trait, was lost. He seemed, indeed, now first to have found himself. It is true that all this was not realized at once. It grew with the natural growth of years. The doubts were not yet all gone. The whole history of these struggling years cannot be better rendered than in these words of Tennyson, loved for their very familiarity : — " Peri)Iext iu faith, but pure in deeds, At last lie beat Lis music out. There lives more faith iu honest doubt. Believe me, than in half the creeds. " He fought his doubts and gathered strength, He would not make his judgment blind. He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them : thus lie came at length " To find a stronger faith his own ; And Power was with him in the night Which makes the darkness and the light, And dwells not in the light alone." His manner of dealing with mental questions, as he de- scribes it, seems the most sincere and reasonable one possi- ble :— " Never be in a hurry to believe ; never try to conquer doubts against time. Time is one of the grand elements in thought as truly as in mo- tion. If you cannot open a doubt to-day, keep it till to-morrow; do not be afraid to keep it for whole years. One of the greatest talents in re- ligious discovery is the finding how to hang up questions, and let them hang, without being at all anxious about them. Turn a free glance on them now and then as they hang ; move freely about them, and see them first on one side and then on another, and by-and-by, wlien you turn some corner of thought, you will be delighted and astonished to see how quiet- ly and easily they open their secret and let you in. What seemed per- fectly insoluble will clear itself in a wondrous revelation. It will not hurt you, nor hurt the truth, if you should have some few questions left to be carried on with you when you go hence, for in that more luminous state, most likely, they will soon be cleared, only a thousand others will be springing up even there, and you will go on dissolving still your new sets of questions, and growing mightier and more deep-seeing for eternal ages." FAREWELL ADDRESS TO HIS PUPILS. Gl The law studies completed in the winter did not culminate in his admission to the bar. That profession had been ex- changed for the ministry. AYe are tempted to imagine what a different man he would have become as a Western lawyer and politician. IIow much of the fineness and poetry and spiritual insight would have been lost ! And, on the other hand, we may learn from his public addresses what a power he would have wielded in matters of national importance, and how fearlessly he would have supported the right cause. In the summer of 1831, the duties of the tutor were laid aside, and he bade farewell to his pupils in a short address. He gratefully acknowledged their kindness which had freed his position from its inherent perplexities, and which made him as regretful to leave his station as he had been reluctant to enter upon it. He urged them to seek a culture not only of the intellect, but of good habits, good manners and prin- ciples, and to include among the objects of their ambition not only the honor of men, but their affection and their confi- dence. He advised them that it is an error for a man to re- tard his advancement in life by a jealousy that others do not think well of him. " I acknowledge," he says, " the difficulty of ascertaining one's true valuation, but I believe no safer rule than this can be given, to take the good opinion of others for granted till we see reasons to the contrary. It is folly to think of succeeding in life without some pretensions. A man must begin to hold up his own head, or no one will see it to be worth the pains." Recommending industry as more necessary to advancement in life than genius, he says, " If I were required to define gen- ius, I should call it the faculty of mental application. Some minds seem, from a very early age, to have a strong adhesive- ness to whatever comes in contact with them. "When a sub- ject enters the thoughts, it is followed for hours, or perhaps for days, with patient, laborious meditation. In the mean- time, everything else is excluded, and the mind is left to toil on in perfect abstraction. In this way they come to an aston- ishing maturity without much assistance from books. Now these are the ethereal souls who are so often described as rea- 62 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. soning without reflection, and embracing everything great by a constitutional energy. Why, these men study more in their dreams than others by their midnight lamps." In conclusion, he offers " two rules which ought to govern every man. The first is to be perfectly honest in forming all your opinions and principles of action. It is one thing to take a position and use your reason to defend it, and quite a different thing to use your reason in selecting a position. In one case, reason obeys the will ; and in the other the will obeys the reason. The other rule which I would have you observe is this, never to swerve in conduct from your honest convictions. Decide because you see reasons for decision ; and then act because you have decided. Let your actions follow the guidance of your judgment ; and if between them both you go down the falls of ]Sriagara, go ! it is the only course worthy of a man." In the autumn he entered the Theological School at 'New Haven, of which Dr. Taylor was the head. It was looked upon at that time as the school of progress in religious thought, and even regarded by some with suspicion for that reason. Bushnell found there a healthful and invigorating mental atmosphere, in which he felt at home ; but his rebell- ious intellect soon asserted its independence of methods of thought which appeared to him mechanical, and this fact made him an inconvenient member of so small a school. One of the instructors once said of him, when questioned as to Bushneirs opinions, that he was " t'other side." A friend said of him, at another time, that '• he abhorred all shams and conventional phrases in argument because he believed so strongly in realities." Shams apart (for they were not in cpiestion here), he doubtless fought with superfluous ardor against the formulas and conventional doctrinal phrases with which his way was strewn, and carried the boldness of his dis- sent a little farther than was needful or comfortable. Eever- ence for human authority was doubtless lacking in his compo- sition, and the want of it might have been serious had not his spiritual instincts supplied a deeper reverence on which faith could build. But dissent was never with him a negative attitude. ' Ilis ingenious mind had its own fresh provision ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY. 63 for every emergency, its own ready siibstirnte of suggestive thought to lill the phicc of every rejected formula. If he found the old path long and intricate, it was no trouble for him to hew out a new and short cut through the woods. lie delighted fo see rickety bridges fall to pieces, not because he was destructive, but because he was a builder. It was at this time that he first addressed himself exclusively to the study of mental and moral science, and its chief value to him seems to have consisted in its rejection. And if this sounds like a paradox, his own words will explain. In an article written in May, 1832, he analyzes and compares the methods of natural and of moral philosophy, endeavoring to show that the sys- tematized science which is possible and even necessary to the former is improper and impossible in the latter. " We may," he says, "systematize in Nature, because Nature is a system, because everything there fulfils its end, and therefore acts in accordance with its fitness to that end; but we cannot sys- tematize in morals, because a great share of the acts of men are in contradiction of those properties in their constitution which fit them to the end proposed by their existence ; be- cause they are the proper expressions only of a frustrating power, a power as effectual in dislocating system as in defeat- ing ends. Why, then, attempt to reconcile in philosophy, when there is war in facts ? Why attempt to reduce to the harmo- ny of the sjDheres the actions and the being of man, when, if the spheres had sinned as man has, that harmony had been unheard even in the dreams of Pythn»goras. . . . Though mat- ter is inert and powerless, never truly acting, but only acted with or upon ; though mind, on the other hand, is agency it- self, power acting of itself and revealing its motions through physical symbols ; . . . notwithstanding these and many other grounds of distinction, the common philosophy, in fact, re- duces the spiritual and the material creation to the same dead level, leaving God the only real agent in the universe. It may be briefly characterized as a soulless, matter-born philos- ophy of mind, having all the vices of paradox without the strangeness. Assuming the prerogatives of a universal liqui- dator, it, in fact, gives no proper solution of anything. In re- 04 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. ligion, it is seen to be absolutely impotent ; it does not even discover in man tlie proper elements of a religious being; re- garding all liis actions as the successive products of a system- atic mechanism, it sees in man no heavenward tendency, no yearning of his nature after God and goodness." Proceeding then to illustrate the greater freedom of a philosoj^hy which regards man, when sinning, as departing from and not acting according to his nature, he sums up thus : " AVhen man, aided by some snch imperfect view or hint as is here given, rises to a steady contemplation of the spiritual, he feels himself to be no longer a clod, but a particle of the divine nature. In the very workings of sin, he feels the imperishable within him, and knows that he shall never die. God he now feels to be the home of his spirit. Eeligion elevates itself to a divine and heavenly reality ; why God should care for him as a Fa- ther he now understands ; the high mystery of redemption lias an intelligible meaning, and he wonders no longer that the blessed angels should be looking after him with such a fellow -kindness. And now, it may be, prayer is become philosophy." Of course, in the above brief summary, we have only the results, without the steps of the argument, and we have pur- posely chosen for quotation those passages where feeling had w^armed his pen to something of its maturer eloquence rather than those which are strictly logical. But here we find him at the point of departure from all humanly framed philosophy. It has been truly said that he had not a philosophy. At this early time, amidst the fresh fascinations of metaphysical study, he employed his newly trained logic to prove that he needed neither logic nor philosophy. And though, when glancing over this manuscript at a later time, when his thought had matured, he pencilled upon it these words, " Boy's work. Much of it false, though a truth lies hereabout," yet he added in a bolder hand, and perhaps at a later date, " This article shows the ferment out of which my IN^ature and Supernaturalism grew into shape thirty years after." In like manner he noted upon another manuscript written in the same year, " Having no sermon written, I read this boy's argument before the association, on CONTINUITY AND GROWTH OF THOUGHT. Go my examination for a license to preach." But this same boy's argument was an attempt to prove the existence of a moral Governor of tlie universe in a fresh way, not from the evi- dences of design in the created world, but from an ingenious use of his own theory of the origin of language. It is, per- haps, not best to unfold it in its crude form here, as we shall have occasion further on to quote freely from his writings on this theme. But it is interesting to tind two leading ideas which became, as time went on and thought and experience ripened, central and all-important, crystallizing thus early in his mind, and there forming nuclei. In these two essays writ- ten in the Theological School, we find the germs of two of his best books, written fifteen and thirty years later. It was char- acteristic of his use of his mind, rapid and intuitive as it was in its workings, that he let things f/row there. It was not the growth of a hot-bed or a forcing-house, but of nature out of doors, with its times and seasons, — a healthy and deliberate growth. It had been his intention to leave Kew Haven finally at the time of receiving his license. But a new interest kept him there yet longer. At the beginning of the sum- mer he had consented, for the short time left him, to take charge of a Bible-class of ladies in one of the churches. The deep seriousness and devout spirit of his words at the prayer meetings connected with the class were as impressive as the freshness of his treatment of Bible themes. Though he had been for so many years a resident of New Haven, he knew nothing of its society. He came, therefore, as a stranger to this class of ladies, except as he had received from others a knowledge of their names and certain impressions of their personalities. " This introduction on a bright June Sunday in church, and over the Bible, was the fitting commencement of an acquaintance that ripened into the union of two lives bound together by the closest sympathy in Cliristian truth and works, and by a faith which transfigured a mortal into an immortal love." Attracted by this new friendship, he came back to New Haven in the autumn, and stayed through the winter, occupied in writing sermons and preaching occasion- 66 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. ally. His first sermon, from the text " Why will ye die ?" had been delivered in New Preston in August. In February, 1833, he went to his friend, the Kev. Mr.-Gris- wold, of AVatertown, for the benefit of his criticism and in- struction in elocution. He preached one morning in Mr. Gris- wokVs pulpit on the subject " Heaven a Continuance of the Earthly Christian Life." ' The sermon, we are told, was full of glowing imagery, and was delivered with great earnestness. EeachingMr. Griswold's home after the service, the young preacher threw himself into a chair, crying, "Now, Brother Griswold, for the rubber." The reply was, " It is, as a sermon, far above my criticism, and that is the point of my criticism. You have shot over their heads." Quick flashed the rejoinder, " Would you have me shin 'em V^ The joke did not mean indifference to the criticism, however ; for when one of his hearers also told him that few had understood him,— that he had been, in fact, quite out of their sight,— he was much cast down, and wrote, " I confess this disturbed me somewhat. I determined, if possible, to dishonor my Master no longer. I accordingly took a new subject, and have written three quar- ters of another sermon. I have struggled hard to make it sim- ple and intelligible, and, in so doing, have made it nothing. There is only one thought in it. I feel a little disheartened, and quite discouraged." It must have been the same sermon which shot over the heads of the Watertown hearers that he afterwards delivered in one of the New Haven churches. The idea unfolded in it, that the occupations of earth will be carried on into another life, was talked over, when church was out, by a knot of hearers. One, a manufacturer of tomb- stones, condemned the notion as fantastic and disagreeable, when another retorted that Brother had the best of rea- sons for not believing that it would be verified in his own case. More noteworthy was the comment of a distinguished clergyman who had listened to the sermon, that " there was more where that came from." He was thus occupied in experimental preparation for his work when the call came. It was in February that he re- ceived from the North Church in Hartford an invitation tem- porarily to supply their pulpit. ENGAGEMENT IN HARTFORD. 67 CHAPTER Y. 1833-1837. SETTLEMENT IN HARTFORD. — MARRIAGE.— DUTIES AND DIF- FICULTIES.—PREACHING.— THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY.- THE SUBJECT OF REVIVALS. He went to meet the engagement in Hartford with many misgivings as to his quahfications, and even oppressed, as he wrote, b}^ a sense of his own unfitness for the work. At the same time, it was some relief to him that the mental clouds were lifting and his own faith becoming clearer. In a letter he said, "My sermon 'IIow Shall we Escape if we Neglect so Great Salvation V I preached here last Sunday, I think with good effect. The attempt I made to show why this is a great salvation was certainly a good thing for myself." On the twentieth anniversary of his settlement in Hartford, he re- viewed the history of his ministry in a sermon in wdiich we find this account of his arrival and of his own mental stand-point : — " I was licensed to preach the Gospel only a few months previous to my settlement among you. I had preached but a few times elsewhere, nowhere with any thought or expectation of settlement; though I be- lieve I had been looked at and i^assed by as not being sufficiently prom- ising in one or two other places. I received a letter in February, 1833, inviting me to come and preach, for a time, to this congregation ; of which I knew nothing, save that you had recently parted with your jias- tor. I arrived here late in the afternoon, in a furious snow-storm, after floundering all day in the heavy drifts the storm was raising among the hills between here and Litchfield. I went, as invited, directly to the house of tlie chairman of the committee ; but I had scarcely warmed me, and not at all relieved the hunger of my fast, when he came in and told me that arrangements had been made for me with one of the fathers of the church, and immediately sent me off with my baggage to the quar- ters assigned. Of course, I had no complaint to make, though the fire 68 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. seemed very inviting and the house attractive ; but when I came to know the hospitality of my friend, as I had abundant opportunity of knowing it afterwards, it became somewliat of a mystery to me that I should have been despatclied in this rather summary fashion. But it came out, three or four years after, that, as there were two parties strongly marked in the church, an Old and a New School party, as related to the New Haven con- troversy, the committee had made up their mind, very prudently, that it would not do for me to stay even for an hour with the New-school broth- er of the committee ; and for this reason they had made interest with the elder brother referred to, because he was a man of the school simjily of Jesus Christ. And here, under cover of his good hospitality, which I hope he has never found reason to regret (extended by him and received by me in equal simplicity), I was put in hospital and kept away from the infected districts j^reparatory to a settlement in the North Church of Hartford. I mention this fact to show the very delicate condition pre- pared for the young pastor, who is to be thus daintily inserted between an acid and an alkali, having it for his task both to keep them apart and to save himself from being bitten of one or devoured by the other. " But this was to be my place. I received a unanimous call of tlie l^eoplc, and took it as a call from God, though I had then a much dim- mer faith in the validity of such a call than I have at present. " When I look back now on the place and the occupant, I am scarcely able to recognize either the one or the other, so great is the change ac- complished in both. I had many and great difficulties on my hands, in respect to the Gospel truths, which are now gone. In the list of my qual- iiications at that time for a preacher of Christ, I discover nothing which moves my respect but the very small mustard-seed of Christian experi- ence I seem to have had, together with a certain honesty of determi- nation to find, if possible, the truth ; to violate the integrity of my un- derstanding by no forced assent to received dogmas ; to be warped by no fear of man, hurried by no impatience; never to go in advance of my convictions ; and, if possible, never to fall behind them. In these two conditions I see, indeed, iDOssibilities of good; but how slender a furniture for the work actually on hand ! I was coming into religion on the side of reason or philosophy, and, of course, had small concei^tion of it as a faith and a supernatural gift to the race. Now it is a faith lu- minous, glorious, vital, and clear, and, of course, it is as little of a philos- ophy. I confess, with some mortification, so deeji was I in the beggarly elements of the school, that I did not really expect to remain in the min- istry long. I thought if I could sometime be called to a professorship of moral ])hilosophy, it would be a more satisfactory and higher field of exertion.* Now, all other employments, even the highest and most * This must not be regarded as inconsistent with the declarations of EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE NEW ROSITION. C9 honorable, aiipear to mo petty and dry compared with the ministry of Jesus Christ, and it seems an oflfeuce to be rc2)ented of that I should ever have allowed anything else to come into comparison with this. The great truths, the greater work, the sublime lifting of the consciousness therein allied to God — to be called away from these to a professorship of moral philosophy would signify about as much to me now as a call out of Paradise, not more." He preached for six weeks, as by engagement, finding the new circumstances full of perplexity, and the new duties on- erous. In order to preach thrice on the Sunday and once in the course of the week, he was obliged to write steadily, as the little stock of sermons he had brought with him was soon exhausted. He was also receiving many kind hospitalities and making many visits. He wrote to his friend in New Haven, waiting anxiously for news of his success, " The press- ure of writing and preaching and visiting, subject to constant interruption, and all this seconded by the nervous agitation incident to a new place and a new business, has kept me con- tinually tossing, and almost distracted me." The young minister of those days w^as required to " toe the mark " very precisely ; and in the humorous hint at the delicate position of the young pastor, " daintily inserted between an acid and an alkali," there is a slight suggestion of that wdiich had a formidable as well as a comic side. The churches of ISTew England were just then distracted by the controversy between the Old and New schools of theology ; and, as if this were not enough, there was much excitement, also, over what were known as "new measures" in the form of religious ser- vices. In the North Church of Hartford, the dividing lines were strongly marked. Even the two leading deacons were opposed to each other on every point in dispute: the one progressive in measures and doctrine, the other most strictly conservative in everything ; both, however, strong and good men, who tempered their differences with a good deal of Christian forbearance. The conservative members of the the last chapter. It is not difficult to imagine what manner of profes- sor of moral philosophy he would have been. 70 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. cliiircli were jealous of tlie theology of the New Haven school, from which Bnshnell came, and the duty of honesty conflicted somewhat with the dictates of prudence. But liis choice be- tween honesty and prudence was easily made. He was liked, in spite of the differences, and, at the close of his engagement, received from the people a unanimous call to become their pastor. He had already been encouraged by indications of success, and particularly by learning that, under the influence of his preaching, one young man had been led to enter upon a new way of life. After a deeply interesting talk with him, Bushnell wrote, " I begin to feel that God has confided to me a noble work, and, with his aid, I shall aim to follow it faith- fully." After but a short delay, he was ordained on the 22d of May, 1833. His father and mother were with him at his ordi- nation, their hearts overflowing with joy at this fulfilment of their hopes. It was the sweet fruit of long years of sacrifice and love and steadfast faith. The following description of the ordination services is given ns by Mrs, Holley, of Lake- ville, who was for many years an interested hearer of his preaching : — " I remember well the day of his ordination ; the examina- tion of the candidate was a scene not easily forgotten. The moderator, old Dr. Nathan Perkins, put the questions in a grave and serious tone. The replies were courteous in man- ner, and direct and pointed in matter, until some old-fash- ioned point in theology was started, when Mr. Bushnell re- plied with an abrupt denial of knowing anything about it, and an intimation that the question was of no special value to any one. When the inquiry was made ' AYhat reason have you to consider yourself a Christian V his voice changed at once, and his reply was so earnest that all felt this was no question of mere theology. In the stillness that hushed the filled lecture-room, he stated the difficulties he had found in the acceptance of a revealed religion, and his determination, at last, to examine these truths anew, and to guide his future life by this decision. As the result of that purpose and the faith that followed, he stood before them. The ordination SUNDAY IN NEW PRESTON. 71 proceeded; and to the first sermon preached to his people many careless hearers listened earnestly for the first time. They felt that this Gospel was no iitterance of platitudes, stale by repetition, no pleasant singsong of old words and phrases, but that a master in Israel had come to them ; and to many this teaching was destined to be the power of God unto salvation. Dr. Buslmell has alluded in one of his print- ed sermons to the 'crudities' of his first religious teachings. We never felt this, those of us who were young, even if any old thinkers and theologians thought his theological views not quite systematized. 1 remember the admiration I felt for one who could think and speak so bravely, and yet, when he had thought more, or had new light on a subject, would just as bravely and fearlessly take back his first assertion." The church had desired that their harmony might be ce- mented by an immediate settlement, and offered him, instead of present delay, a two months' vacation at the close of the summer. He was planning for the autumn, and the home to be; and, in addition to his many new duties, had undertaken to build a house, for which he made the plans and drew the contracts himself. He was therefore ready for the vacation when it came, and went back to his old home, eager for its repose and the quiet beauty of the old scenes. Once more he fished on the lake and mused on his new calling as " fisher of men." In the following letter we have his account of a startling scene in the New Preston church on the first Sun- day of his stay, and while he w^as preaching : — " The shower was rising w'hen we entered the church in the afternoon. Towards the close of the prayer it began to rain and hail together, and the storm increased in violence, so that when I began my sermon I could scarcely be heard, and it was so dark that it was difficult for me to read. I had read but a few pages before a tremendous crash burst upon the house. An awful pause succeeded; then the audience burst out in cries of terror, and began to rush for the door, for the smoke in different parts of the house gave indications of fire. For my own part, probably because my thoughts were engaged in something else, I was as completely self- possessed as I am now. I stood, therefore, and cried to them to stop, for I perceived that there was more danger from the rushing of the crowd than from anything else. The movement was arrested; some began to 6 ^2 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. throw up the windows, as many were stunned ; one man was carried out lifeless, but began to recover as soon as they were able to get water to dash upon him. My brother's wife had one of her shoes thrown from her foot, and her stocking torn, and several escaped as narrowly. In the gal- lery on my left hand, I saw as many as twelve or fourteen persons rise up wiio had been dropped by the shock. I found that the lightning passed down the rod, and thence, in difierent directions, ploughed up the ground for twenty or thirty feet, killing one animal and prostrating one or two more. Inside of the house, it passed down one gallery just at my left hand, and down another most distant from it diagonally, shivering them both, and even splitting off a part of the pew-door near one of them. The whole house, I may say, was struck. It was a tremendous charge, but no one was killed. How wonderful this escape ! The pulpit is in a recess under the steeple, and there I stood, under the heaviest of the bolt, as safe as if I had been in the arms of God. I icas there. So were we all, and that seemed to be the feeling of all. After tlie shower had passed, the audience were called to their seats, and, after a few words said, by way of restoring tranquillity, I resumed my sermon, ending it with an extempore appeal. The events of the afternoon made that thun- der-storm hymn awfully significant, and wdth that the day was closed. God has saved me from the midst of danger, and, I hope, to devote me to some purpose of mercy and usefulness." On the 13tli of September, 1833, he was mamed, in Kew Haven, to Mary Apthorp, a lineal descendant, on her mothers side, of John Davenport, the first minister, and first colonist, of New Haven, and of Judge Abraham Davenport, whose name and strength of purpose are associated with the " Dark Day," famous in colonial history. Her mother, who has but lately departed at the age of ninety-five, bore the strong and elevated, characteristics of her Puritan ancestry, expressed in her person by a simple dignity and beauty which were indi- vidual and all her own. The marriage of Horace Bushnell and Mary Apthorp was one which comprehended, in the thoughts and wishes of both, the highest objects and pursuits of the future, and was so compacted by the unity of their joint purpose as to reinforce greatly the eiiectiveness of his work. After a few weeks spent in ]^ew Preston, they came to Hartford, to begin their life among a people always hence- forth most affectionate and beloved. As their own house was not yet ready, they were received, for a time, in the family of NEW DUTIES AND HOME. 73 Daniel Burgess, who had ah-eady shown himself a warm friend. Mrs. Bushnell says, " We were peculiarly favored in this hospitality. Everything in their home was simple and unambitious, but free and generous, as became both the ample means and unworldly character of the hosts. The mistress of the household filled it with the atmosphere of saintliness; love, joy, and peace shone in her face and radiated from her person. It was a benediction to the young pair, just entering upon their sacred calling, to rest awhile under her shadow, and be drawn with her into her beatitudes. That blessing fol- lowed us all the way through." The winter was spent in constant study. The writing of two sermons for almost ev- ery Sunday occupied him the wliole week. In those days he wrote slowly, and with a good deal of labor. The work that should have ceased with the morning was too often carried on through the day and into the evening hours. He wished also to visit and become well acquainted with all of his people, and these pastoral duties were so new and strange to his student's habit that they were at first the most diffictilt and awkward part of his work. He did not neglect them, however, but made a point of visiting every one in the congregation at least once a year, and more frequently among familiar friends, or where he knew that he was needed. He acknowledged this to have been the defective branch of his service, and that for which he had least aptitude. In the second year of his min- istry, we find him expressing dissatisfaction with himself, and with the results of his work, and resolving "to be more simple, to aim more at doing good, to cultivate a more worthy interest in the souls of my people, to pray more, to be more abundant in self-denials and labors, and, I hope, to have a better estimate of my duties, and a more cordial love for them even in their humblest forms." It became a custom with him and Mrs. Bushnell to make the annual visitation together in the pleas- ant days of autumn, sometimes walking, or sometimes driving into the country to the more distant homes. " Those bright October days," she says, " still spread their soft haze on the background, where are pictured the bright faces and cheerful welcomes that have lono; ao'o faded from earthly recognition." 74 LIFE OF HOBACE BUSHNELL. In December their house was finished, and, with the delight of a new exjjerience, thej began to make their own home. They were greatly interested in contriving to make skill and taste take the place of money ; for of the latter they had small store. The salary of twelve hundred dollars, though an ample one for plain living in those simple times, left no margin for extravagances. J^ever to be in debt was the foundation principle of their domestic economy, and they had the cour- age resolutely to adhere to this principle through life. It saved a great deal of trouble in the end. The Ann Street house was a simple, square, two-story building, with a small green yard, graced by a noble oak in the rear. In the spring, it was a positive pleasure to the minister, with his farming habits, after a winter in the study, to find himself out-of-doors digging in his little garden or grading the door-yard. It was, perhaps, about this time that we must date the little story of a friend concerning an evening spent with the minister and his wife in their own home. She was a girl of fine intelligence and character, but not at that time religious. When, there- fore, she was invited to tea by Mrs. Buslmell, she accepted with considerable misgivings lest the evening should be made the occasion of such exhortations as were then too commonly the only subject of ministerial intercourse with " the uncon- verted." To her great relief, however, the time was spent in the pleasantest social intercourse, free from all remarks of a personal nature. Mr. Buslmell, of course, saw her safely home when the evening was over, and, as the night was one of brilliant starlight, the talk on the way was naturally of as- tronomy, and of the law-abiding order of the universe. He spoke eloquently of the great harmony of the spheres, and of the perfect manner in which each little star fulfilled its destiny and swung in the divine order of its orbit. " Sarah," he said, turning to her with a winning smile, " I want to see you in your place." No other word turned the suggestion into a homily, and her quick intelligence was thrilled and won by a thought which seemed, in that quiet hour, to have dropped upon her from the skies. He had simply let the oc- casion speak its own thought. MOUNT WASHINGTON. 75 The following letters from Mount Washington are among the earliest in our possession. The second little letter, writ- ten upon the mountain-top, was pencilled on birch-bark, and has become almost illegible. It seems that at this early date he was beginning to suffer from a throat trouble, and that this journey was taken for health's sake. He travelled wath Mr. A. N. Skinner, of l^ew Haven, and some ladies : — To his Wife. Carroll, September 15, 1835. My dearest Maey, — Here we are at the base of the great everlasting mountains. We arrived here at noon to-day, in fine spirits and eager for great exploits. We set off this af- ternoon in two old one-horse wagons for the Notch, wdiich we passed, and descended for two miles to the place where the Willey family perished, in 1826, by a slide in the mountains. I shall not attempt a description here. I will only say that the scene is awfully, almost terribly, sublime. It seemed to me that I should have larger thoughts and better feelings as long as I live. The Washington, the monarch of all these mountains, is now before us, and to-morrow Mr. Skinner and I will try to put it under our feet. The ladies have W'isely given up the thought. To-day the top of Washington has stood all day enveloped in clouds till just at sunset, when they vanished, and left its bald head exposed to our delighted vision. Grand, grand, indeed ! I have never seen anything like it before. The top, for at least a mile, is now covered with snow, which makes it still more glorious as the evening sun gilds it, though it offers us but a cool reception to-mor- row. We have been w^onderfully fortunate thus far in every- thing. Our drivers have been careful, kind, and respectful ; our stopjDing-places remarkable for neatness and every kind attention. I never saw a series of hotels so respectable. Even here, in this wild, lone region of forests, are two great hotels, the only houses for miles, where every convenience and many luxuries surround the guests. Indeed, I have had nothing but a constant series of good breakfasts, dinners, and suppers all the way, which I have received w^ith the appetite of a lion. 76 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. I was never so conscious of recovering elasticity and life. Every step something glorious opens upon ns here, which makes me regret that my dear Mary cannot look upon it with me. You know that I am not one of the sight-seeing animals ; but here it is not things that interest me, but God. Surely I see God as I never did before. I hope the dear being, who is the tie made visible of our hearts, lives and rejoices. I write this after the others are gone to bed ; and, as I feel that I am taking cold, I must cease. I wish your mother could see these wonderful scenes. The heart of a true son could scarcely wish the best of mothers a better happiness in this ^ world. Kiss the dear little one ; tell her that I love her. Wednesday Morning. — All is clear ; not a cloud to be seen ; so that if we can endure the cold, we shall most certainly triumph. We are wonderfully favored. There has not been another truly clear morning since we started, though the weather has been good for travelling and limited scenery. IS'ow that the boundless opens, the sky becomes a crystal. September 6, Half-past 12 o'clock, ) Top of Mount Wasliingtou. i I write you from the top of this glorious throne of Nature on a piece of the native paper. We have had a fine ascent. The top is covered with snow and crystals of ice. The sky is clear — [one line is here erased by time]. The view is beyond description. I look away to the distant sunny South, hill beyond hill, and my heart longs for my dear wife. If my feet could travel as fast as my eye, how soon would I be by her side ! And thou, my sweet little one, too ! Oh that I could hold her in my arms, and print a kiss on her fresh lips ! How sweet are the feelings of a hus- band and a father ! I thank thee, O God of the mountains, for all thy goodness unto me. It is all undeserved, and yet there seems to be almost favoritism in it. Farewell till we meet again. Your husband, H. B. It is not too early to ask what Horace Bushnell was show- ing himself to be as a preacher. He was at this time, as he EAllLY SERMON -WRITING. 77 himself will sliow us later, " passing into the vein of compre- hensiveness ;" and it became one of his first studies to touch the opposite poles of truth and hold them in their nnity. In this respect it would ])q easy to draw a parallel between his preaching and that of Kobertson, who held that every highest truth is found in the union of two opposing truths. Perhaps the best specimen of his* early sermon-writing is one in the volume of " Sermons for the New Life," entitled " Duty Xot Measured by Our Own Ability," which was written in tlie first year of his ministry. Another sermon, written in 1837, on " Living to God in Small Things," appears in the same volume, and has been thought, by many readers, to be one of tlie most practically efiicient he ever wrote. In 1835, short- ly after Garrison was lynched in the streets of Boston, and doubtless keyed by that event to a high pitch of feeling con- cerning our national dangers and vices, he preached a sermon called the " Crisis of the Church," in which he expressed him- self boldly and earnestly on these matters. This sermon, pub- lished by request, was tlie first in which he appeared in print ; and we accordingly find his copy of it labelled " First-born child." Mrs. Biishnell remembers that he came home one day, having just, for the first time, seen the pamphlet, in- scribed with his name, in a book-store window, and actually feeling abashed by such publicity. Turning over its yellow leaves, the modern reader cannot fail to be struck by the clearness and force with which he grasped and stated the national position, as one of moral power and influence among the nations of the world, as then at a formative age, and also at a crisis of peculiar danger. "We stand," he says, "to represent certain great ideas and principles, the success and validity of which, among other na- tions, depend in a chief degree upon us. . . . We are not more distinguished in representing the principle of self-government than we are in representing the Protestant faith ; or, at least, whatever distinction may be ours in the former light is due only to the fact that Protestantism and Christianitj' have come to their head in us ; and here, in our American institutions, have passed out for the first time to make experiment of their 78 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. virtue. . . . And does any one doubt that our republicanism is born of this spirit? Philosophically it must have been, his- torically it was. Self-government in religion passed over, by a natural and necessary consequence, to beget self-government in law ; and that same equality which was held in the Church of God extended itself to the civil State. Had it been a Eom- ish emigration, religion itself would not only have furnished it with tyrants, but with a due submission also. Turn your eye southward, and see what it would liave been ! But a band of Congregational Protestants, emigrating to this New World, neither did establish, nor could have established, any other than a popular government. ... It was Protestantism in relig- ion producing republicanism in government." Going on from this point to consider the age as a formative and critical one in American history, he says, " The elements of life and death are now everj' where in the nation, and somewhat nearly in the same proportions; and we come up, as it were, a whole nation together, to try the final struggle and decide what we shall be. , . . And just at this crisis it is that we are beset with pe- culiar dangers. I name, as the principal, slavery, infidelity, Romanism, and the current of our political tendencies." Of slavery he speaks as a growing evil, begetting stormy and im- perious passions, and teeming with the rankest jealousies. " Is it not," he asks, " too sensitive for salutary control, and ready on all occasions to sunder or revolt at the slightest imaginary grievance ? Such should not be the temper of a free people. . . . Such a republicanism is rather forced than natural. It has its seat in the will ratlier than in the conscience ; and all its moral afiinities from the first have, accordingly, been adverse, and have operated to depress tliat noble virtue which gave birth to our institutions. It had a more natural sympathy, and would have coalesced more readily, with the abortive the- ories of Fj"encli liberty than with that spirit which caught its fire from the pure altars of God in l^ew England. How full of excitement, too, is this unhappy subject ! We have scarce- ly ceased to feel how the pillars of the nation shook when it was only proposed to limit the extent of this dire evil. And it is but a few months since a great city here at the North VIGOR OF HIS PREACHING. 79 ■was involved in tumult and outrage for three successive days by the mere discussion of the subject. The wliole material.of slavery, all the moral elements which it supplies to our insti- tutions, are inflammable and violent. At almost any hour it may explode the foundations of the republic." He also speaks of Eomanism, and of the great facilities it has for advancing itself when considered in connection with our elective system. He foresaw what a tool the power of the priests was to be made in politics, and what an instrument of corruption it would become. But we must not tarry longer over this in- teresting paper. His preaching had in those days a fiery quality, an urgency and wilful force, which, in his later style, is still felt in the more subdued glow of poetic imagery. There was a nervous insistence about his person, and a peculiar emphasizing swing of his right arm from the shoulder, which no one who has ever heard him is likely to forget. It seemed as if, with- this gesture, he swung himself into his subject, and would fain carry others along with him. His sermons were always writ- ten out in full and read ; never extemporized, never memor- ized. For the latter method and its results he had no liking. For the former, not suflicient confidence ; though that came to him later, when driven to extempore work by ill-health. His early manner betrayed this want of confidence, and was at times a little constrained and labored. The same was true of his prayers, which lacked ease and flow, such as came to him with fuller inspiration. The whole effect of his services was, however, always pointed and practical. Prayers, hymns, Scripture reading, text, sermon, all converged on the same cen- tral theme, and went to heighten the impression of the lead- ing thought. The following description of his preaching, at an early pe- riod, was given by Charles L. Brace, in a recent letter to the Eiiangelist : — "The writer holds it among tlie especial blessings of his life that his boyhood and youth were jDassed under the pastorate of Dr. Bushnell. Those were the eager and powerful days of the great preacher, when his .language had a pure and Saxon ring which it somewhat lost in later 80 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. years, when emotions from the depths of a passionate nature bore him sometimes to the highest flights of eloquence, and wit and sarcasm flashed from his talk and speeches, and he stood the most independent and muscular sermonizer in the American pulpit. He reached after- wards a higher plane of spiritual life, and showed more balanced power and more consideration for the views of others, and was no doubt more humljle-minded, and yet more elevated above the world ; still those early fiery days of his left an indelible mark on all the youth who came under his influence. We felt the divine beauty of Truth, and how sweet and easy it was to sacrifice all to her. We were withdrawn from the over- powering control of external formuloe and formal statements, and began to search for the realities as for hidden treasures. Our great teacher seemed to stand as a prophet, directing us to things unseen and eternal ; and though perhaps he and his disciples at that time exaggerated the value of the intellect, it was a healthful movement, and always inspired with devout reverence and a deep sense of the j)ersonality of Clirist as the Son of God. Truth, independence, humanity, under an overpowering faith in God and Christ, were the principles stamped then into youthful minds by the preaching and life of Dr. Bushncll. He showed himself in all his intercourse, what he was, a large pattern of a man. Proud, at times al- most disdainful; full of powerful feelings; simple; witty; tender as a woman to real misfortune, but biting in his sarcasm against pomposity and falseness ; self-willed, thoroughly independent, a true leader of men." We have spoken of a constraint of manner, and traced it, in part, to a want of confidence ; for, though called a self-confi- dent man (as he was in matters of opinion), he was, notwith- standing, characterized by an unaffected personal modesty. But he was under a certain constraint, too, which came from external influences, by which he was hampered more than he realized. Not only were there rocks ahead all the time in theological differences, as sharply defined in his own church as in the Church at large, among which he must steer his way, but there was also a constantly increasing heat and animosity on the slavery question. The fact that his own j^osition on this question was positively antislavery, but non-abolitionist, did not simplify the matter. It would have been easier for liim if, on all great questions, he had been able to take sides with either party. But this was not his way. Whether in public affairs or in religious questions, it was his tendency to seek, not the fence by any means, but the powerful sweep CONFORMITY IN SMALL THINGS. 81 of the mid-stream between the opposing shores of Conserva- tism and Radicalism. lie found here difficult swimming and little company, but that sort of progress which is most sure and prevailing. There was another kind of restraint, which must have been irksome in those days to independent men, in the too strin- gent and arbitrary standards upheld by religious people as to the conduct of life in small things. The typical Kew-Eng- lander was, in one sense, much of a Jew, and lived by statutes as strict and numerous as those of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. From the influence of Bushneirs early training had come the conscientious habit of his manhood, to consent to and follow those rules of life, even in unimportant matters, which, in the minds of those about him, were connected with religious standards and had become points of conscience. If he, too, became a Jew, it was after the manner of Paul. He took heed lest his liberty should become a stumbling-block to them that are weak ; and if his eating meat should cause a brother to of- fend, he would eat no meat while the world stood. On one fast-day evening, he was replenishing exhausted nature after the day's work with a somewhat hearty supper, when, finding that he was, by so doing, wounding the conscience of the faith- ful Presbyterian woman who cooked for him, he cut short tlie meal with a joke, which, reaching her ears, was to her thinking as grievous an abuse of a sacred day as even feasting could be. It was singular that he could follow this course of conformity for years without restricting his mental freedom ; but forbearance, even verging on caution, went hand in hand wnth his fearless pursuit of truth, yet did not encumber it. And though this was the work of conscience, or perhaps he- cause it was, he did not make a very solemn matter of it, but carried off his submission with jollity and good cheer. If he had too little reverence for anybody's dictum, he made it up by a deep and genuine reverence for the leadings of conscience in the most ignorant of his fellow-men. The subject of revivals was, all through his ministry, a great perplexity to him. " The machinery system of revivals" was pushed then to greater extremes than now. The frequent 82 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. presence of tlie evangelist preacher, and the tacit acknowledg- ment that progress and development in the churches were im- possible without these spasmodic and frequently applied ex- citements, were constant sources of annoyance to a pastor faithfully endeavoring to lead his people in high and constant modes of Christian growth. The prepossessions of religious people were so strong upon this point that he had great diffi- culty in making his views understood. He was willing to con- cede a certain use in religious revivals, but not to leave to them the whole field of religious experience and character. In 1836 he published, in the Christian Spectator^ an article on " Revivals of Religion," eleven years later reprinted with the second edition of his " Christian Kurture," and designed to clear his position upon this point. A few quotations will sufficiently explain his views. He says, " ^Nature is multiform and various on every side. She is never doing exactly the same thing at one time which she has done at another. She brings forth all her bounties by in- constant applications and clierishments endlessly varied. A single thought extended in this direction were enough, it would seem, to show us that, while God is unchangeable, he is infinitely various — unchangeable in his purposes, various in his means. And so it is instructive to advert to the various and periodical changes of temperament which affect men in other matters than religion. These fluctuations are epidemi- cal, too, extending to whole communities, and infecting them with an ephemeral interest in various subjects, which after- wards they wonder at themselves, and can in no way recall. No observing public speaker ever failed to be convinced that man is a being, mentally, of moods and phases which it were as vain to attempt the control of as to push aside the stars. These fluctuations or mental tides are due, perhaps, to physi- cal changes, and perhaps not. They roll round the earth like invisible waves, and the chemist and physician tax their skill in vain to find the subtle powers that sway us. We only know that God is present to these fluctuations, whatever their real nature, and that they are all inhabited by the Divine Rower. Is it incredible, then, that this same Divine Power should pro- REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 83 dnce periodical influences in the matter of religion — times of peculiar, various, and periodicar interest ? . . . These remarks bring us to conclude that there is in what we call revivals of religion something of a periodical nature, which belongs to .the appointed plar.of God in his moral operations; but as far as they are, what the name imports, revivals of religion (that is, of the principle of love and obedience), they are linked with dishonor; so far they are made necessary by the instability and bad faith of Christ's disciples. But here it must be noted that the dishonor does not belong to the revival, but to the de- cay of principle in the disciple, which needs reviving. " We now pass on to a stage in which dishonor attaches to the scene of revival itself. This is when it takes an extreme character, which is not given it by the Spirit of God, but orig- inates in some mistake of opinion or extravagance of conduct in the subjects and conductors. What we complain of and resist is the artificial firework, the extraordinary combined jump and stir, supposed to be requisite when anything is to be done. It seems often not to be known that the extraordi- nary in action, as in rhetoric, is imj)otence itself. It must come to pass naturally, or emerge as a natural crisis of the ordinary, if it is to have any consequence. . . . But to act on views like these would require the ministry to enlarge the sphere of their instructions, ... to acquire a more complete and proportional idea of character, and to learn to go beyond the line of exercises which only nrge repentance. Paul did not regard the religious character in his converts as a tiling by it- self, a conversion well tested and followed by a few duties specially religious. He considered the whole character of the disciple — mind, manners, habits, principles — as the Lord's prop- erty. He felt that the Gospel was intended and fitted to act on everything evil and ungraceful in man's character, and ap- plied it to that purpose. Let the minister of truth, then, oc- cupy such intervals as are suitable in forming the character of his people to things lovely and of good rejDort. Let him take advantage of Scripture history, and especially of the history of Christ's life and manners, to draw out illustra- tions of character, and beget, what is so much needed by the 84 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. Christian body, a sense of character, of moral beauty and com- pleteness." This was the high ideal of the Christian ministry which he M'as always endeavoring to till out in his own earnest, unspar- ing way of work. His service never dragged into a dull rou- tine, fitfully lighted by flashes of spasmodic enthusiasm. He was inventive and full of resources in his methods of influ- ence, and so fully alive and alert that no soul was left to slum- ber in his presence. The mind wliicli he would help he first kindled, letting in daylight at neglected windows, and* fresh breezes of inspiration at long-closed doors. Then, when life was awakened, he offered as food to the hungry soul no stale platitudes, or morsels of innutritions doctrine ; but the whole- some bread of life, genuine hopes, living faith, love and work worthy of a man. LOSS OF A CHILD. 85 CHAPTER YI. 1837-1810. LOSS OF Ills BABY LILY.— SUMMER VACATION AT LONG ISL- AND.—LOSS OF HIS MOTHER.— BIRTH OF HIS SON.— ADDRESS AT ANDOVER AND FIRST HERESY.— DEACON SETII TERRY.— AMERICAN POLITICS.— CALL TO THE PRESIDENCY OF MID- DLE BURY COLLEGE. In the year 1837, he lost his infant daughter, Lilj. The older child was very ill at the same time, and his tender minis- trations at home were unceasing. A friend of his wife's, who was often with them in this hour of trial, was much touched by the exquisite tenderness of the loving father, whose stronger and more worldward side were all that she had known of him hitherto. Even now she recalls it, as a beautiful life-long memory, and says that as she learned to know him then, she has loved him always. The next autumn, the saddened parents took a journey through Canada together, and made their first visit to Niagara. They also went to Brockport, New York, whither Mr. En- sign Bushnell had lately removed his family from New Pres- ton, and there Horace Bushnell saw his beloved mother for the last time. There is no written record of the journey, but it was a time of much-needed rest and renewal. In the summer, he had given at Yale a Phi Beta Kappa address, on the " True Wealth and Weal of Nations," the earliest written of the papers contained in "Work and Play." The summer vacation of the next year was spent along the shores of Long Island Sound, and he finally found himself at East Hampton, on the outer coast of Long Island, whence the following let- ter was written : — 86 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL, East Hampton, July 18, 1838. My dearkst Wife, — Yon sec (and you understand how about as avcU as I do) that 1 have drifted off to sea. On Monday morning, learning that a sloop was just about sail- ing for Sag lIarl)or, a considerable whaling village on Long Island, I put aboard in company with Mr. MacDonald, and now we are here. On landing, we found a carriage waiting to take somebody to East Hamilton, and, as there was nobody else to go, we Avere obliged, of course. East Hampton turns out to be a simple Puritan village, on the south side of Long Island, and formerly under the government of Connecticut. The town extends down to Montauk Toint, twenty-five miles, including all the east end of the island ; but the inhabitants are all here, save one poor light-house tender. The surf roars, a mile off from the house and street, not unlike Kiagara, and to my mind constitutes a scene of sublimity altogether new, — shall I say second to Niagara itself ? See the eternal, vast ocean rolling in from immensity, and hear it thundering on the trembling shores. And, if it Avould add at all to the scene, march down trembling into its cataracts, as I did this morning, and shall do again this evening. This is tlie place for me. I begin to feel alive. We have a simple, neat fare, with a Puritan-like family. I forgot to say that this was the place, and the sea-sui:f perhaps the element, in which Dr. Beecher was hatched into a great man. MacDonald will go home to-morrow morning, and leave me here. But I expect that he will send over Mr. J>. I hope, too, that he will send me a letter from you, which is necessary now to put me quite at ease. I am afraid you can hardly imagine how very com- fortable it is here. I have been almost tempted to go directly to Hartford and bring you on here ; and I would, if it would not take up all the time I have left. I shall remain here till next Tuesday, aiul in the evening you will probably see your guilty deserter return. I was never so much away from home in my life. It seems like a violence almost that severs me thus from you. I can hardly understand how it has come to pass that I have thus turned my back on all that binds me to the earth, — binds me stronger than I ever realized before. The DEATH AND BIRTH. 87 Lord be with you, and with our dear child, and keep both you and yours safely. II, Busiinell. While he was at East Hampton, his wife at homo received the sad news of his mother's death, and sent it to him at once ; but communication was so slow that he did not hear of the event in time to be present at her funeral in Brock- port, N. Y., where she had died. It had been a subject of tender regret with him that his mother had been uprooted from the old home in Xew Preston, and that, so late in life, his parents had attempted to organize a new home in the West. The hard-working life had been unremitting in its cares and labors even to the end ; and he said more than once, w^ith moistened eyes, that he did not doubt that all these things (the work and the late removal) had conspired to shorten that life so dear to him. Eagerly as he embraced work himself, rugged and unsparing of his manly strength as he was, he had a chivalrous sympathy and tenderness for working-women in their hardships, which, doubtless, sprang from his memories of his mother and her labors. Joy followed pain in quick succession. In September, shortly after his return home, his first and only son was born. Writing of the event to his wife's mother, Mrs. Apthorp, he speaks thus of " the little gentleman :" " I suppose I ought to bulletin the first sign of intelligence, given some four or five days ago in the shape of a very gracious and meditative smile, which, doubtless, he will repeat on sundry occasions yet to come, as he has done already. Do tell us what to call him, so that we shall think it the very best name in the world." But the mother thought ''the very best name" was Horace, which Avas, accordingly, given to the child. In the spring of 1839, he was complaining again of throat trouble, and in July was glad to make his escape for a time to Saratoga. To his Wife. Saratoga, Sabbath Evening, July 7, 1839. My DEAEEST Maey, — You told me that I must not write you a hasty letter, though I am not certain how much you 7 88 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL, will gain by the requisition ; for it may turn oat here, as it does with my sermons, that the quickest work is the best. I arrived here yesterday, as I expected, and found a lodgment at the Union Hall, where I am for the present. I am pleas- antly disappointed in Saratoga. It is destined to become a very beautiful place, as well as a resort of disease and fashion. Whether the waters will do me any good is, of course, to be decided, though I hope for the best. But among all the pleasant things, and above all besides, is that which I always realize when I go from home, — that I begin at once to find my thoughts turning thither and re- volving with a newly recruited desire about the place. ]^o sooner do I find myself at rest, and free in the play of my natural thoughts and feelings, than a sweet sense of estrange- ment begins to creep over me. In such a case, it is truly most delightful to see how sweetly what is left behind insin- uates its presence. The w^alk, the solitary chamber even, are haunted unawares by a feeling which must be called social. The tone of conversation, the opinions expressed, are mould- ed or sentimentalized by that same thing which I have called a sweet sense of estrangement, and which is, in fact, a very present presence. I recollect, as I write, that in reading a treatise or exposition of Quaker doctrine, which I have been doing to-day watli much real edification, I was half converted by the verj^ handsome, if I should not say beautiful, argument offered in honor of a woman ministry. If I should return a Quaker for your sake, I trust you will be ready to become a Quakeress for mine. Indeed, if I cannot get over my present difficulty, the pleasant relief of Quaker silence may further constrain me, and you will then be able to exercise the gift which I have lost. . . . Your husband, Hoeace Bushnell. In the following September, he delivered, before the Soci- ety of Inquiry at Andover, Mass., an address on " Kevela- tion." The time set for the address was anticipated by a week, and he was not aware of the fact until the Sunday night preceding the Tuesday on which the yet unwritten ad- ADDRESS AT ANDOVER. 89 dress was to be given. He shut himself up all day Monday, jumped into the stage at sundown, the ink still wet on his manuscrijit, rode all night to Worcester, and on the next day to Andover, where he arrived just before dinner, and imme- diately after gave his address. Necessarily it was hasty in form ; but the material had long been in his mind, had al- ready been studied in college days, and was destined to be- come central in his system of thought. The subject was Lan- guage, its use in figures, and its methods of interj^retation, especially as applied to Biblical statements concerning the Trinity. The doctrine here first broached was, according to orthodox standards, not less than heresy. Such he felt it to be, and knew that he was now taking that first step which costs so much. Out of health as he was already, he looked to the consequences with some grave apprehensions, shown clearly in the following letter to his wife, which was written during his absence, and while he was making a little visit to a college friend : — Byfield, September 7, 1839. My dear Mary, — I have not yet received any notice of your whereabouts ; but I feel this morning as if I wanted to have a little talk with you, and will try to give my letter an address that w^ill find you out, at any rate. I am enjoying a very pleas- ant time here, of course ; but not so pleasant that my mind does not often turn towards my dear home, and the dear wife in whom my heart has so sweet a repose. My home is more a home to me than it ever was. I linger round it with a domestic love which I seem never to have realized before, except in some partial degree. Perhaps it is owing partly to the plans we have been moulding together for the advancement of our children, the disinterested and somewhat self-denying ex- pedients we have been projecting. But wife and children, — a w^ife the dearer because she is the mother of my chil- dren ; children the dearer because they are the children of my wife ; home sanctified by the common endearments of both, — these are the thoughts and images that visit me with their fresh and gentle influence. I call myself a husband and father, consider the dependence which hangs on me, propose 90 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. to do more for my dear family, revolve the possibility that I may not be able to do what I would for them, feel a shade of melancholy, hope, waver, turn to God, who is the defender both of myself and them, and there rest,— rest the more sweet- ly because of my frailty and my love together. I cannot but feel a degree of anxiety about myself in regard to my future health, which is constantly acting on my love to my family. This disease hangs about me, and I am afraid is getting a deeper hold of me. Not that I seem to have been specially injured by my late task in the Andover matter, for I was borne through it quite above ray expectations ; but the mis- chief clings to me, and will not let me go. In the hasty scratch I sent you in the turmoil of the anniversary, I told you generally how I succeeded. ... I said some things very cautiously in regard to the Trinity which, perhaps, will make a little breeze. If so, I shall not feel much upset. I have been thinking lately that I must write and publish the whole truth on these subjects as God has permitted me to see it. I have withheld till my views are well matured ; and to with- hold longer, I fear, is a want of that moral courage which animated Luther and every other man who has been a true soldier of Christ. Then, thinking of such men lately, I have often had self-reproaches which were very unpleasant. Has my dear wife any of Luther's spirit ? Will she enter into the hazards and reproaches, and perhaps privations, which lie in this encounter for the truth ? Strange, you will say, that I should be talking, in the same letter, of doing more for my family and of endangering all their worldly comforts. But I am under just these contending impulses. However, in what way shall I do more for my family than to connect their history with the truth of Christ ? How more, for example, for our dear boy than to give him the name and example of a father who left him his fortunes, rough and hard as they were, in the field of truth ? But will not God take care of us ? These are thoughts which liave been urging me for the last few months, or since the shock that has befallen my health. And I have sometimes felt afraid that I should be obliged to leave the world before my work was done. Shall ANXIETIES. 91 we go forward ? If I receive notice that yon are at home, I shall be at home, I think, Wednesday or Thursday of next week. In another letter to his wife occurs the following passage : — Saratoga, July 15, 1839. . . . There is one grand rectifier of man, and only one, in which I have confidence, — religion and the grace of God. This is a remedy which comprehends everything. And the more I think of it, the more clear does it seem to me that our eyes must turn hither. It moves from a point back of all difiiculties, and supersedes them by a comprehensive, blessed, overflowing influence. I certainly would not discourage the seeking out special faults, and the endeavor to correct them by good resolutions. I have some on hand which I hope to oi3serve; but, after all, I can hardly confide in anything but a truly pious spirit of life. Perhaps God will teach us, my dear, to exercise such a spirit by calling me off from my office and resources, by reducing us to the humility of want and pious dependence on him. A. postscript to his little daughter followed : — Dear L., — I thank you very much for your sweet little letter. If you learn to read and write, you will be able very soon to write me little letters with your own hand. I hope you are learning very fast. I shall be at home in just a week more, and I hope you will be so good all the time till then that your kisses will be very sweet to me. Good children, you know, give sweeter kisses, by a great deal, tlia.n bad ones. And God, my child, you know, will help you to be good if you wish to be. He has given you a good mamma, and a sweet little home, and a yard to play in, and everything to make you good and happy. Your father loves you more than he can tell you, and sends his thoughts away in the night into your chamber where you sleep, and prays God to bless you. Good-bye, my child 1 A kiss. Youk Fathek. 92 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. Already his departure from the accepted standards of doc- trine had brought his preaching under the close scrutiny of the conservative part of his congregation. Deacon Seth Ter- ry, once before alluded to as the chief representative of the Old School in the North Church, wrote him in January, 1839, a letter of kind remonstrance on this subject. He said, "I have for some time been exceedingly pressed in my mind respecting my duty to yourself and the church of which you are pastor and I an unworthy member, regarding my views of your public ministrations. . . . Between our views of many of the important doctrines and princij^les of the Scriptures, I have been more and more convinced of late, and especially since your recent exposition in your doctrinal dis- courses, there is a wide difference. Had tliis difference been on minor points, or on those of a controverted nature, I should have had less difficulty, and perhaps have remained silent ; but, as I view it, you hold many things which affect and sub- vert long-established and well-established doctrines and prin- ciples, and those in which our churches are at rest and in union." He fears that the letter may seem disrespectful to his pastor (a fault which his respect for the ministry would forbid), and adds, " If, in my endeavors to be plain and ex- plicit, I should seem to be harsh, I assure you that such are my feelings towards you personally, arising from your gen- tlemanly and Christian deportment, that I should regret it." He then proceeds carefully to instance the points upon which he thinks he sees in his pastor a defection from the true faith, and especially upon the doctrines of regeneration and total depravity or original sin. " I would have a child of mine," he says, " told that he was all the time sinning and rebelling, and that he must yield himself to God as a living sacrifice, and that nothing short of that will avail. . . . The sinner under conviction does not need advice from the minister of Christ to set about praying and striving and doing other penances calculated to satisfy his conscience and make him feel easy, at a point short of submission and love. Universal experience has shown that the Adversary will always help him to do this, and he, often resting on these, comes short of salvation." He AMERICAN POLITICS. 93 also discusses a sermon which "exceedingly alarmed" him, and parts of which he could not even liear, as "his spirit sank within him." In closing his letter, he again exjn-esses his pain that he is now, for the first time, so unhappy as to differ from his pastor, and that " on doctrines concerning which liis own views have not changed for the last thirty years." We have not Mr. Bushnell's answer to this letter, but we find it full of his pencilled notes, and comments on points where he evident- ly meant, if possible, to satisfy Deacon Terry. The passage on depravity is the only one unmarked by notes, and was doubt- less, both in his view and Deacon Terry's, unanswerable. The letter, with its blue paper, quaint handwriting, and formal manner, is a complete embodiment of the tlieology it rejDre- sents, and recalls vividly the state of sentiment and opinion which opposed itself to his teaching. In December, 1840, he preached and published a sermon on American Politics. The national questions of the hour were always full of excitement to his mind, and he kept a keen eye upon all public tendencies which might endanger tlie body politic. In this sermon, he called attention to some dangers which looked then most imminent, and also to some which had only just begun to loom upon the horizon, and which are vital questions in the country to-day. To the lat- ter class belong the two following quotations : — " We are led to inquire wlaat part is proper to the women of our land in these political strifes. It is worth noticing that of the two women most conspicuous in the history of our Lord's trial-scene, Pilate's wife, who stayed at home, gave him some good advice, which it had been well for him to follow ; while the busy maid, who went, actually faced down an apostle, and made him lie and swear as vilely as the worst man could. Some, I know, are pleased to unite the ladies in their political demon- strations, because their 'presence greatly conduces to preserve order and decorum. And doubtless it does in its first effects. It is an honorable distinction of our country that we pay so delicate a respect to the female sex, and that our roughest men, our roughest assemblages, are seen to be softened and dignified by their presence. But I am greatly jealous still of the future efi"ects that will follow^ if the practice alluded to be contin- ued. It will not take many years of rough publicity, in these ways, to make our ladies mere women to us, and abolish the delicate respect we 94 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. yield them. ... I should be silent on this subject were it not for the rev- olution which is beginning to appear in the manners of the female sex in a certain section of our country. I am anxious that such a revolution should have no general countenance anywhere. Perhaps I am unreason- ably anxious ; but if that revolution is to go on as it has begun, it will certainly destroy some of the most precious and best influences we have left. Do save us one half of society free of the broils and bruises and arts of demagogy ! Let us have a place of quiet, and some quiet minds wliich the din of our public war never embroils. Let a little of the sweetness and purity, and, if we can have it, of the simple religion, of life remain. God made the woman to be a helj) for man, not to be wres- tler with him. This he declared in the grand sacrament of creation, and we have a greater interest in the arrangement as religious beings than many ever stay to consider. Here it is that feeling is kept alive in us, and our affections saved from utter extinction. United, here by truth and love, the truth of heaven and the love of God find a place also to enter our hearts. Or if this be too much, our nature is at least prepared, in a degree, to understand and open itself to the blessed approaches of religion. But if to all our present powers of strife and faction we are to add a race of factious women, there will not be left enough of feeling and rest to make life tolerable or allow virtue to breathe." . . . "Again, we are admonislied, in our history, of the depravity of the doc- trine which .proposes to give the spoils of victory to the victors. Let me take you to the scene where your Lord is crucified, and, after the work is done, I will point you then to four men, not the most worthy, sitting down to parcel out the garments of the crucified Saviour, and casting their lots for the seamless robe he wore. These, too, were receivers of the spoils. Now, this doctrine which projioses to give the spoils to the victors has been imputed mostly to one of our political parties, and, as some suppose, has been avowed by that jDarty. Of this I am willing to doubt. . . . We shall see, perhaps, how far the opposing party will abjure this doctrine of the spoils, and whether it is not yet to be the univer- sal doctrine of politics in the land. If so, then shall we have a scene in this land never before exhibited on earth, — one which would destroy the integrity and sink the morality of a nation of angels. It will be as if so many offices, worth so much, together with the seamless robe of our glo- rious Constitution, were held up to be the price* of victory, and as if it were said, ' Look, ye peojile, here is a pi'emium offered to every discon- tent you can raise, every combination or faction you can mention, every lie you can invent. Cupidity here is every man's right ; try for what you can, and as much as you can get you shall have.' . . . Only conceive such a lure held out to this great people, and all the little otfices of the government thus set up for the price of the victory, without regard to merit, or anything but party services, and you have a spectacle of base- CALL TO MIDDLEBUKY COLLEGE. 95 ness and rapacity such as was never seen before. No preaching of the Gosijcl in our hxnd, no parental discipline, no schools, not all the ma- chinery of virtue together, can long be a match for the corrupting power of our political strifes actuated by such a law as this. It would make us a nation of apostates at the foot of Sinai." Ill the spring of 1840, lie received an invitation to become the President of Middlebury College. There were some rea- sons why, just at this time, the opportunity seemed a good one, and, although most strongly attached to his own people, he found it difficult to decide his duty in the matter. The recent failure in his health, complicated by the uncertainties which arose from newly developed opinions, gave a feeling of instability to all circumstances, either those in which he now found himself, or others wdiicli he might choose. The letter to his wife which follows was written on the way to Middlebury to look over the ground : — Brandon, March 20, 1840. You see by my inscription that I have not yet reached my place of destination. I am now seventeen miles distant, and I shall have to travel pretty much all night to reach my goal. I reached Rutland, thirty-two miles off, on Wednes- day evening, at half-past ten o'clock, in a little lumber-box, one-horse wagon for a stage. Mr. P , a member of the cor- poration, sent me on from Rutland to Mr. C 's, in Pitts- ford, in the afternoon, to await the stage, which did not arrive till the evening. About ten o'clock, Thursday evening, it came on, — an open wagon, in the most drenching storm you could wish. I declined the honor of a seat. Mr. C brought me on to-day, eight miles to Brandon, where I am waiting for the said open wagon again, with a fine prospect of a storm. I must go now, rain or shine. I think of you much and often, my dear wife, and the more tenderly that your fortunes may possibly be so much tried in the matter I have on hand. On setting off from Hartford, the thought of you in this matter took possession of me, and I could not get free of it all day. It seemed almost like a half-cruel errand on which I was go- ing, and not the less so, that I knew you to be so willing to 96 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. have me do as my duty should direct. ... I hope our dear boy is not sick, though I think of him with constant anxiety, — anxiety which is quite as mucli concern for you, however, as for him. I hope for the best, of course. Now, a word to L. Deak L., — I told you that I would write you a letter, or a part of one. I have been looking out on the way to see if I could find any little L., and I have seen only one that was at all like you. I did see one little girl-face at the window that was so like you that I really wanted to kiss her ; but I con- cluded not to stop the stage for it, and perhaps she would not have been willing if I had. Besides, it was not you, and it would have done me no good. I hope you are as good as you know how to be, and that is very good indeed. I hope you will pray for your papa that God will keep him safe and show him what is his duty. So good-night. Your dear papa, H. Bushnell. After his return, he wrote to his wife in New Haven : — Hartford, April 14, 1840. My dear Mary, — ... I found an invitation in the of- fice to go to New York, and speak for the Home Mission Society at their anniversary, which I have declined. To-mor- row evening I have to deliver my lecture at Springfield. I have to attend the temperance meeting this evening, to write a fast-day sermon, to answer Middlebury, to prepare for the Sabbath, etc., etc. So you must not expect me to die from loneliness this week. I discovered, after I reached home, that this is my birthday. Thirty-eight years old 1 Alas ! alas ! What have I done in these thirty -eight years but grow old? What good have I done? Probably I shall never see thirty-eight years more. Would that the years which remain, be they many or few, might be given all to my Master, and that I might not be compelled to blush at the judgment-seat if he should say, "Well done." BUILDING A NEW HOUSE. 97 Oh that this case were decided, and rightly ! I am sure if I knew what my duty was, I would take it. I thank you, my beloved wife, for the considerateness, and, as I think, true-hearted interest, you have taken in this mat- ter,— your readiness to hear evidence, to yield yourself to my duty, and sacrifice even objects very dear to you, for no bet- ter reason than the advancement of my mind and my studies. It has brought the tears into my eyes more than once, when alone, to think on your truly devoted spirit. Love to the children. Your husband, H. Bushnell. He at last decided to decline the offered position at Mid- dlebury and to remain in Hartford. He went on, the same year, to settle himself more to his mind in a new house, again one of his own planning and building. He was ridiculed for his choice of a site " in the fields," as people said, and on a street as yet unopened, and which he himself christened Win- throp Street. The situation commanded a fine view of the Connecticut River and valley ; and the fields, then unbroken in their verdure by the presence of a single building, made a delightful playground for the children. His own study win- dow looked eastward, and gave him, while at his work, the refreshment and inspiration of a lovely prospect. Here he lived till the day of his death, and here his family still linger. 98 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. CHAPTER yil. 18-11-1845. DEGREE OF D.D. — SECOND COMING. —LECTURE AT HUDSON.— DEATH OF HIS SON. — PROTESTANT LEAGUE. — CATHOLICUS. — PUBLISHED ARTICLES AND ADDRESSES. — LETTERS. — ILL- HEALTH. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon Hor- ace Bushnell, about this time, by the Wesleyan College at Middletown, Conn., and would probably have been declined if it had come from an older college, as he did not highly value either the title of Doctor or the significance of the degree. But he could not without discourtesy refuse the offered honor from an institution in its youth, and struggling for a place among other colleges. The same degree was afterwards be- stowed by Harvard, and, toward the very close of his hfe, the degree of LL.D. by his Alma Mater, Yale. In the following fragment of a letter to his wife, written from Plymouth, Conn., in September, 1841, we have his re- vived impressions of his native Litchfield County: "As for myself, I am able to tell you that I begin to enjoy these country scenes with a fresh relish. Saturday afternoon I set off from Mr. Lyman's on foot, and scoured two of the mountains south of the town all over. The scenery from their tops and sides was truly delightful. It has a natural and yet a new look to me — natural because memory and old associa- tions give it a color, new because I see it with more cultivated eyes, and am able to relish it with a more earnest feeling. On both accounts it was one of the most delightful after- noons I ever spent. I never had my heart more crowded with feelino-. I was like a boy who had been absent a long time and now returned to his old home, where they all come THE SECOND COMING. 99 round, exclaiming, ' How he has grown !' It was only Nature that told me I had grown, and she seemed to do it in such a motherly way that I felt myself her son more certainly than ever. You see how it goes. If I should return to you a poet, you need not wonder. I do think that this visit to the old scene of my childhood and youth will do more to bless me, to revive, emancipate, and refresh my feelings, than any travel among new scenes and wonders that I could have chosen. I am really thankful that my mind was turned in this direction. Exactly how and where I am going I do not know." A kind old friend and parishioner wrote him a letter of gentle admonition, and pleaded with him to give attention to the doctrine of the Second Coming, which she had much at heart. He replied as follows : Hartford, July 13, 1842. My deak Mrs. B , — I have read your letter, and before God I thank you for it. I regard it not with oifence, but rather as the strongest proof of friendship you could give me. I am afraid I have not another friend among all my people who would undertake thus to warn me and reprove me. I think I see that it costs you a great struggle to do it, and I make no doubt that you are somehow instructed or moved of the Spirit. Your letter shows me that you do earnestly pray for me. Would that I could think as much of all, or even a considerable number, of the church ! I hope you will not be discouraged, or desist, if your prayers do not result as you yourself would wish, or as you now seem to expect. I cer- tainly think that I have a "great work to do for my own soul and that of my people," as you express it ; but you are greatly mistaken, I think, as to the kind of work I have to do. I felt your reproof not a little till I came down to the matter of the Second Coming, which to you, I perceive, is the great burden of it. But it would be very difficult for me to take what you have to say to my conscience. You ask of me to examine the Bible on this subject. Why, my dear woman, I have done it, with greater care and with a more steady dispo- sition to submit my mind to evidence, I am confident, than God ever vouchsafed me in anything else, and I am as cer- 100 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. tain as I can be that what you believe so earnestly is all a de- lusion. Nor am I quite able to believe that I have not en- joyed some advantages in this examination that you have wanted. I cannot, therefore, take up the question as you request of me. I have no time to spend in a work so un- profitable, and in regard to which I am so well settled in my opinion. What then ? Are you deceived in regard to your prayers and the dealings of God with you in them? I will say for your comfort that you may be in a mistake as to the precise meaning of the Spirit in his dealings with you. He may in- tend that you shall do me great good in some other respect than the one which seems to fill your mind, and that I, in turn, shall do you good by clearing your mind of an unprofit- able delusion. Let me ask you to read the first article of the last No. of the Biblical liepository, which I think will give you some valuable instruction. God may intend to answer your prayers, he may have testified his acceptance of them, but the answers may come in a different shape from what you now expect. I am anxious to believe that they will be an- swered, and I can imagine waj^s enough in which they might do me a great deal more good than in making me a believer in your doctrine of a Second Coming. So pray for me still and ever, and do not interpose your new faith in God's way, so as to hinder your prayers. He will be more likely to hear you if you do not prescribe to him. I shall always remember your kindness of old when I first came to Hartford. May the Lord ever be with you, in the sweetest forms of his grace ! Your pastor, H. B. Another letter, written the next year, serves to give the balance of his thought on a subject which is rather hastily dismissed in the foregoing. To 3frs. S . Hartford,March 20,1843. ... I am glad to see that you keep clear of any allusion to certain visionary and flighty notions in reference to the de- THE SECOND COMING. 101 striiction of the world about this time. These are air-castles, which no argument can demolish. The question you raise, whether the world is to he generally subdued to Clirist, is a sober question worthy of a profound attention, and I wisli it were discussed much more than it is. . . . You think there are no expressions in the New Testament that anticipate a general spread of the Gospel. Let us see. Christ teaches his disciples to pray, " Thy kingdom come ; Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven ;" which, to say the least, discloses a hope that his kingdom is to come in a very general, if not universal, spread. Else, why teach us to pray thus? Why encourage us to pray for a thing not to be hoped for? Then, again, he commanded his followers " to preach the Gospel to every creature," which looks as though he expected a general triumph of his cause in the earth. He compared the Gospel to a mustard-seed, and also to "leaven that should work till the whole was leavened." He declared that his angels (which means his ministers and missionaries) " should go forth with a great sound of a trumpet, and gather his elect from the utter- most parts of the earth." All of which is the high-wrought phraseology of prophecy to denote the spread of his Gospel. He declared that his coming should not be here or there, not visible, but, like the lightning, glancing from one end of the world to the other. You ai'gue from the silence of Paul that he had no expectation of a general triumph of the Gospel. But Paul was not silent. He says that the Jews are finally to be brought back from their apostasy after the fulness of the Gentiles is come in. See the whole of Romans xi. He de- clares that " Christ must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet;" — that God has "purposed in the fulness of time to gather together in one all things in Christ." He quotes Isaiah, and says, "All shall know me, from the least to the greatest." The very passage to which you refer, in Sec- ond Thessalonians, proves against you, — -"Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming." The true idea is that the Man of Sin is to be destroyed, or have his empire demolished, by the power of Christian truth and by the glorious brightness 102 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. and effulgence of the Sun of Righteousness, On the whole, I think you may cease to feel that the New Testament is si- lent in reference to the spread and universal victory of the Gospel. Add to the above, — 1. That the spirit of the Gospel is uni- versal love, and that it seems in its very nature to reach after all nations ; 2. That up to this time there has been a general progress, even from the beginning ; and, 3. That things now indicate a great and blessed change : the world is just now laid open, the dark places just begin to see light ; and the arts, and inventions, and political doctrines of liberty in the world, all coming to maturity in these last days, indicate a good day for the world. Things prophesy as truly as the Word, and we must put all God gives us together. In February, 1842, he went on a little lecturing tour to Bridgeport, Brooklyn, New York, and Norwich. The next summer he was invited to deliver a Commencement address at the college in Hudson, Ohio, and gave for his piece, as he modestly calls it, an address on the " Stability of Change." It is with reluctance that we suppress, for want of space, se- lections from this yet unpublished address. The thought is fresh and stirring, the language fluent, brilliant, and eloquent in a ver}^ high degree. It is a little singular that this prose poem was never revised and given to the world. The two letters here given were written on tlie journey. Hudson, Ohio, August 8, 1842. My dear Wife, — You perceive by my superscription that I am safe at the end of my journey. I arrived here a little after twelve o'clock Saturday night, very uncomfortably dust- ed, long-bearded, and tired. I preached once yesterday ; and this morning I am going to work to see if I can reconstruct some parts of my piece, first writing you a few words, in greater haste than I meant to suffer, that I may let you know of my safe arrival. ... I am very much pleased with what I see in the institution here, and especially with the spirit and character of the professors. But the country ! Only think LETTERS FROM HUDSON. 103 of a country that has no horizon, or one whose horizon is sunk, gone clown out of sight, so that you seem to be living on a shelf that slopes down to an edge and there dro^DS ! No sweeping, rounding outline — no distant blue ! It makes me think, almost every time I open my eyes, of that sweet back- window and of the eyes that may be looking out of it. Would I could be there too for an hour, enjoying both the sight and the seers, — my own sweet, blessed home ! Never did I seem to see so feelingly that our own house and home is the place for us, and that God is specially to be thanked for its comfort and its sweet enjoyments. I hope the dear chil- dren are well and happy. Kiss them all for me over and over again, and kiss them, too, not only for their own but for their mother's sake. I wish my letter Avere a much better one. But you will make it good by your allowance, and by your wish to have me take my time for preparing to be your hus- band with honor. Brockport, August 16, 1842. I write you now from the public hotel of this place, some- where between half-past eleven p.m. and two to three a.m. I am here waiting for the night line of canal-boat to Roches- ter. The secret of the matter is this : I learned on Lake Erie, when returning last Friday night, that the Auburn Theologi- cal Seminary holds its anniversary on Tuesday and Wednes- day,— i.e., to-morrow and the day after. Mr. Badger, of the Home Missionary Society, urged me to go on and be there, and I felt that it would be a great, though unexpected, pleas- ure. Accordingly, I hastened on, stayed with S over Sunday, came over here, and made a visit yesterday at fa- ther's, and am now laying my course for Auburn, in the best way at command, after spending the day here. ... I had a very pleasant time, indeed, at Hudson, partly because I seem to have excited more interest than I anticipated. My address went off , I think, very w'ell, — it was considerably improved by what I had done to it since leaving home. Then, the next day, — Commencement, — after the exercises, they invited me to give my " Life " lecture. It w^as a somewhat hazardous thing to comply, but I never spoke to a more eagerly atten- 101 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. tive audience. Quite to my surprise, I am nearly convinced of one thing, viz., that my peculiarities of thinking and style, etc., vrould go down much better at the West than at the East, and partly because they are offended by nothing new, glued to no habits of thinking or not thinking, but ready to catch with eagerness at everything which seems to be true. In a word, they are all alive in this region. I found, too, at the Commencement, more Connecticut people than I should have seen at Yale, — more, at least, that I knew. The Western Reserve is, in fact, a kind of garden at the West, a most glo- rious exhibition of what it is to be born of a Xew England stock. AVhen I saw the houses, farms, churches, school-houses, etc., it was a picture of New England over again. I was at home in all but the face of the country, and the perfect dis- similarity of that made the moral identity tlie more striking. It made the old poet's declaration true of society as well as of the individual, — " they who pass the sea do not change their mind." . . . I should love, in this quiet, soft hour, to creep in upon the repose of the children, and go round from face to face as a night-elf, lighting softly on their lips and stealing the kisses. You should wake in the pleasant morning, and should not know what makes you all so happy, — the gentle half-dream I might stir in your heads, — stir, but not enough to make you recall it. Take care now, all of you, — L , the little wheel- barrow gentleman, and the tiny -voiced lady that shouts "Papa" so musically, — one and all, take care, lest one of these nights there should be a thief among you. Cover your bless- ed faces, lest the night-bee should come without a buzz, feel- ing the flowers all over with his honey -tube, and robbing them when they do not know it. Stop the key-holes, bar the shutters, and burn a good strong light, for light, they tell us, is the o-reatest terror of thieves in the world. I hope that I shall be able to return in good healtli and spirits, and I know that I shall return with a new opinion of ray own sweet home, to embrace you all with a new fondness. There is something exceedingly sweet in these temporary ab- sences. They renew the relish of our affections, and make us LOSS OF HIS SpX. 105 conscious of tliem. Love is like music. Heard all the while, it becomes a mere noise ; but when the noise ceases to be heard — when the car listens for it in a distant land of stran- gers and cannot catch the sound, — then does it think the old noise music again. Kiss the children, — farewell. Your husband, H. B. During this absence his little bo}', whose health had long been a source of anxiety, developed alarming symptoms of brain-disease, and after the father's return he faded rapidly, and died on the 9th of October. The child had been remark- ably good and lovely, with a spiritual nature, doubtless pre- maturely developed under the approach of disease, but, not the less, of an angelic sweetness. On the only son the father had staked his manly hopes, and the loss and disappointment was one that sorely sti-ained his heart, ^nd thrilled with strong vibrations every chord of his spiritual being. It was a heavy blow, never to be forgotten, — one which influenced his whole future life and character. His thouo-hts beo:an at once to push on eagerly into the unknowm, and he w^rote sevei-al sermons on the " Life of Heaven." When, a year or two after, he went into the country to preach for an old friend, the latter noticed an increased fervor in his preaching, and in intimate talk perhaps alluded to it, when he said, ear- nestly, " I have learned more of experimental religion since my little boy died than in all my life before." We have a recent letter from the Rev. Dr. O. E. Daeorett, who with words of consolation mingled these tender recollec- tions : " My thoughts have run back over many jears to in- tercourse and incidents that permitted me to know him as not many could, — to know him so personally that I read what he wrote w^ith the accompaniment of his tones and movements, and in the light of his eye, — to know him in his insight, and magnanimity, and tenderness, and be familiar with his wel- come. Young as I was in the ministry at Hartford, and younger than he, too, in years, I have often remembered his cordial encouragement, and the appreciation, which a stran- ger might not have expected him to give so readily. His 106 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. friendsliip has been one of tlie privileges of my life and min- istry. ... I remember that, in an evening sermon soon af- ter the death of his little son, in speaking of heaven, he said, 'Have not I a harper there?' He has now himself enriched that world, to those who are left to think and speak of him as gone thither." In the spring of 1843 he became interested in the "Prot- estant League," which afterwards took shape in the " Chris- tian Alliance." To his wife, absent in New Haven, he wrote thus of the formation of the society : — " Mr. Albinola, an Italian gentleman, whose name I think you have heard, came here on Saturday to move his Italian society. I think he is the finest-looking man I ever met, especially when excited in conversation. He has taken up a good deal of my time, and I now have it on hand to prepare a report, etc., for a public meeting of citizens, in which I am going to recommend, not a ' Philo-Italian Society ' but a Prot- estant League, the object of w^hicli shall be, avowedly, to move on Pome itself, and to overthrow the Papacy. . . . My 'Connecticut' comes on poorly. I have done nothing to it. Between designing a communion table, and laying pave- ment, and preparing candidates for the church, etc., etc., the time has gone, and left me no minute to spare. I shall soon have my hands full in the garden. I told you that solitude had scarcely a chance to come at me. At the table I meet the gray sister, of course." A few days later he wrote again, — " Our Protestant League has not gone far. I drew up a report as long as a sermon, and costing me twice the labor of a sermon. But when the friends came together, timid coun- sels prevailed. They, however, requested me to transmit the Report to the Philo-Italian Society, as a suggestion to be weighed by them. I claim in the Peport that Pome is weak- er at Pome than at Cincinnati, — that we can unite Protes- tants in a movement to complete the Peformation in Italy, when they could not be united in a movement against Po- manism in our own country. I also went into a considera- tion of ways and means for operating in Italy." The Philo- Italian Society had proposed to effect their object through the THE PROTESTANT LEAGUE. 107 agency of Italians themselves, not judging it wise or, indeed, practicable to employ foreigners in sucli work. " The Chris- tian Alliance " became the title of the society, which excited a considerable interest throughout the country. Dr. Bushnell threw himself into this cause with his wonted enthusiasm, and, during a period of three or four years, spoke for it wher- ever he had opportunity, — in Kew York, at the May anniver- saries, in '43 ; and in Boston, to a large and excited audience, in '46. He also carried it through Europe with him. With memories of the Eeformation of Luther, freshened by a new Protestant Reformation then stirring in Germany, the pros- pects of a direct attack upon the Papacy seemed doubtless less shadowy and unsubstantial at that time than now, when the current of political tendencies has swept away the methods and spirit of Luther. But he was not in danger of working obstructively or blind- ly. That his insight into the principles which underlie the history of human society was clear, is shown in an address on the " Growth of Law," given before tlie Alumni of Yale Col- lege in 1843, and now incorporated in the book, " Work and Play." This address is a wide and philosophic survey of the growth of the moral principle out of the purely physical ele- ments of the primitive human life, and a hopeful Christian augury of the growth yet to be made in the world's progress. Enriched by abundant citations from history and by the analogies of natural law, and abounding in high strains of thoughtful eloquence, it is certainly a remarkable product of an education and experience so purely provincial as his had been. It must be remembered that our great philosophical writers of history had not then spoken, and that the study of human society had hardly as yet become a science. Although some of Dr. Bushnell's hearers and readers followed his train of thought with a degree of sympathy, there were not want- ing many minds to whom it seemed a flight of reason too daring to be either safe or profitable. To this class belonged " Catholicus," an anonymous reviewer, who came out with a pamphlet, " Letter to Dr. Bushnell, on the Rationalistic, So- cinian, and Infidel tendency of certain passages in his address lOS LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. before the Alumni of Yale College." This quaint reviewer, whose catholicity appears only in his name, considers any theory of the primitive life of mankind not to be found in the book of Genesis as rank infidelity, and objects to all anal- ysis of the Scripture narrative from an outside point of view. AVriters like "Catholicus" make good mile -stones. They serve to show us how far we have travelled. In June, 1813, he was in Boston with the great multitude who attended the Bunker Hill Celebration. He speaks of an evening spent with Theodore Parker, when they " went over the whole ground of theology together," and of Ripley, wnth whom he walked arm in arm in a small army of clergy, in the procession that moved to hear Webster. He stood near enough to AVebster to see the working of his countenance, and heard the whole of the great oration ; but of the oration he has nothing to say beyond sending a copy of it to his wife that she may judge for herself. He seems to have been more interested in the great orderly crowd than in the speaker, though he was at all times an admirer of Webster. On his return home he wrote of the same visit to his young daugh- ter in Kew Haven : — Hartford, July 23, 1843. My deab Child, — I have been meaning for a long time to write you a letter, in return for the one you were so kind as to send me, but I have been so full of business since I came back that I have hardly been able to find time to sleep. I delight to hear of you often, as I do through your friends, and especially to hear that you are doing so w^ell in every re- spect,— attending earnestly to your studies, employing your time carefully, and doing what you can to win the esteem of your good friends and companions. Which do you think makes parents happiest, — to hear that their children are happy, or that they inake others so ? to hear that they are praised, or that they are good ? to hear that they excel others, or make friends of them ? And what do you think they love to hear most of all? My dear child, you are growing up into a woman very fast. I have a great desire that you should endeavor to make your- PUBLISHED ADDRESSES. 109 self the best and loveliest of women, to have a wise character, a gentle heart, pure and simple manners, and, in a word, be such that everybody will be your friend. I went, you know, to the great celebration at Bunker Hill, and there I saw a great many more people than you ever saw or thought of. It was a very noble sight to see so many peo- ple, and not see a bad-looking, wicked man among them. I saw a great many thousand little girl faces there too, from every window and balcony, and roof and door-stone, all glis- tening with delight, swinging their white kerchiefs, and say- ing right out, by their joyful looks, that they thought we had the best country in the world, and that that was the happiest day. Your own father, Horace Busiinell. The year 1841 was marked by several publications. One was a review of a "Charge," by Bishop Brownell, on the "Er- rors of the Times," which Dr. Bushnell afterwards sincerely regretted, as too harsh in spirit and discourteous in manner. Other published articles were : " The Great Time-keeper," in the National Preacher ; " Taste and Fashion," and " Growth, not Conquest, the true Method of Christian Progress," in the New Emjlander ; and a sermon, entitled "Politics under the Law of God," which, as he has marked upon his printed cop}' , "made a breeze." Delivered as a Fast-day sermon, during the Presidential campaign when Henry Clay was a candidate, it had an influence so decidedly against him as to rouse the pro- tests of the Whig hearers, who violently opposed its publica- tion. The following sentence they considered especially of- fensive ; and when the sermon was published by the author, who remained unshaken by the clamor, its omission was urged by some of liis own people : — " The man" who was fore- most in that transaction (the Missouri Compromise), who therein took upon his soul the sorrows of untold millions of bondsmen, and the moral desolation of the fairest portion of the globe, the nation follows with its warmest plaudits and the promise of its highest honors." When published, tlie ob- jectionable sentence was found accompanied by the following 110 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. note: — "It will be* seen at a glance that I am not assailing Mr. Clay as a candidate. I only show my point, viz., that the moral wrong of the transaction is now virtually assented to and participated in, politically speaking, by the whole nation. In other words, it is a national sin. We are accustomed on Fast-days to speak of national sins, and deplore them freely. And if our nation ever was guilty of a sin, it w^as so in this transaction. I have a right to speak of it, and show how far we are conformed to it and contaminated by it. Further- more, if my object had been to injure Mr. Clay as a candi- date, / should not have assailed the least mdnevaljle ])oint in his character.'''' Charles L. Brace, in a letter about Dr. Bush- n ell's early preaching, says : — "Those ■wlio recall those years will remember that note, M-hich pre- tended to be an apology, in his sermon, on voting for the best of two bad candidates, wherein he struck Mr. Clay such a blow as to cost him tens of thousands of votes for the Presidency." The sermon was, in fact, reprinted, and freely circulated as a campaign document by the other party. The writings noted as belonging to this time were all, it will be observed, somewhat related to outside matters, and were the outcome of a bold and aggressive spirit. It is, therefore, interesting to find that a sermon on the "Insight of Love," from the text, "She hath done what she could," — one of the most tender and spiritual in its teachings of those contained in a volume published twenty years later, — was first written in this same year. There were years all through his life when a high tide seemed to set in to every mental inlet, and his work in all directions was great. This 1844 seems to have been one of the tide years. Cabotville, January (Tuesday), 1844. My dearest Wife, — I arrived here from Boston at one o'clock to-day. . . . Towne is safe. He began on the Sabbath his undertaking to build up a new church, with his room filled to overflowing. The Puritan of last week had an ar- ticle from some ninny of Connecticut endorsing Catholicus, complaining, too, that I answered C. in so tart a manner. Tlie LETTER FROM CABOTVILLE. , 111 Christian Register (Unitarian) had also a column and a half extracted from Catholicus, to intimate, I suppose, tliat I might be leaning towards Unitarianism, though connected with some remarks that evinced a sense of the absurdity of such crit- icism. So you see that I met myself in Boston in diverse shapes. Thus much for the news, which I will give you more in particular when I return home on Friday. I have had no little enjoyment of my dear wife and children this afternoon. Sitting here over my fire alone, with nothing to do and my mind at ease, my heart has once more discovered itself, as it were, anew. Oh, this rest, this unoccupied day, — how I do long, for my heart's sake, to have rest ! It sweetens my fam- ily, makes my love conscious, makes it an enjoyment, and I really seem to live. ISTever did I realize so convincingly the great' power you have over me, and how necessary you are to my well-being. I am sure, too, that there is nothing more beautiful, and more to be envied by the poets, than this same charm of power by which a good wife detains her husband. It is not an ambitious, noisy power ; it is silent, calm, persua- sive, and often so deep as to have its hold deeper than con- sciousness itself. She does not take him away from the rough world and its drudgeries — does not make him less than a man, but still he will, in all he does, be her man ; and if the rough calls of duty which worry him give way for a time, then he discovers that she is still presiding over his happiness and, as a very small helm, guiding his way. lie is proud of her without knowing it, loves her when he is too weary or too much bent on his objects to be conscious of his love, deposits his soul in hers, and thinks it still his own. She ministers, and yet is seldom ministered unto. She makes his future and ascribes it to himself. My dear wife, you wives have much to bear ; but is it no compensation to you that j^ou bear it so well, — that you ful- fil an oflSce so disinterested, so beautiful ? We hear a great deal of maids wdio are angels, but to me the truest angels on earth are the good wives. I hope you are all well, and that the dear children are as affectionate and good as you desire 112 . LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. them to be. Kiss them for me, over aud over — even as many times as will satisfy L . Your own husband forever, H. Bushnell. In a letter from Washington, April 18, 1844, he says :— " This is a most wretched and contemptible place. IIow sad that anything which bears the name of Washington should be contemptible ! and especially the capital of his country ! Ev- ery man, woman, and child here is a dependent somehow on the Government, — an office-holder or suitor for office, an eject- ed officer pining for a change of administration, a boarding- house keeper, a keeper of the public grounds and buildings, a page, a runner, a driver: — the whole concern, buildings and all, have the shiftless, half-made look of servility and depend- ence. I have been very busy here, ever since I came, at work at my statistics and listening to the debates in the two Houses. I heard a furious debate yesterday, in which I was not a little pleased to see that there is, or appears to be, a tendency grow- in o- up among I^orthern men to coalesce and turn a front against slavery, or, at least, against Southern domination. I find, too, privately, that there is a feeling of stubbornness tak- ing possession of ISTorthern minds, and a determination to be ridden over no longer. I am getting acquainted very fast with men, and faces, and affairs. I should be quite a poli- tician if I remained here long." In February, 1845, the break-down in health, threatened for so many years, actually came. He was prostrated by a fever, which was followed by soreness of the lungs and other bad symptoms. As the spring advanced he gained by de- grees, and speaks in a letter of working in his garden and planning to preach. At this time his salary was raised by his church to $1500. His wife, also in very poor health, had gone away, in March, for a little rest, and he writes cheerfully of the children, begging her to remain away until she is better. "Anything," he says, "is well enough if it is temporary; and if our light is withdrawn only to be re- kindled, why, the darkness even will answer for light." In April, however, not mending as fast as he had hoped, he LETTER FROM NORTH CAROLINA. 113 went, with bis friend Dr. Skinner, of New York, to North Carolina. Etlcnton, North Curolina, April 17, 1845. My dearest Wife, — You will get this a day later than I supposed, for it takes a day longer to make the journey to this place. We arrived here last evening about nine o'clock. And it is a new world indeed, new to me in every respect, — a country extending hundreds of miles like a great pancake, without rising in any place more than twenty-live feet above the level of tlie sea, and most of the way not ten feet ; rivers flowing hundreds of miles without flowing at all (as in true Irish, I may say), — a country where slavery unmakes the at- tractiveness of the great swamp of nature ; a country where there is no time, or sense of it, or measure of it ; where rail- roads and steamboats set down for eight o'clock find the hour anywhere between eight and noon. However, it is something to find a warmer sun and a sweeter climate, to hear the birds filling the woods and trees with their music, and notice the flowers loading the air of April with the fra- grance of June. I rejoice to say that the heat agrees with me right well ; my pain is almost wholly gone. I am sensible of it only in the morning before rising, and then but slightly. I think I shall return quite well. At any rate, a great many sad sentimentalisms or gloomy forecastings about my dear wife and children are quite chased away. Often, very often, in the course of my journey hither, though Dr. S w'as very agreeable, was my heart oppressed, sometimes almost to bursting, by the thought of my dear family,— how little I had done for them wdiich possibly I might, what must be their condition if my health was indeed finally broken, how I could leave them if I must leave the world. Such thoughts haunted me all the way, I may say, till I began to have some superstitious feeling about them, some apprehensions that they were connected with some accident or fate that was about to end me. I sighed, I prayed mentally, I felt my heart rising to pour out its tenderness. In short, I never travelled in such a mood before, — realizing at once my Aveak- ness, my shattered state, as never in my whole sickness ; and 114 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. the deep tenderness of my love to yon, its strong necessit}'-, its inextinguishable power, as never before in ray life. I look back now, and see how far a strong man may be reduced to- wards a state of childhood. I probably shall return to IS'ew York the latter part of week after next. It is now a time of dreadful drought here, — no rain for seven weeks. But a shower begins to sprinkle as I write.. The whole Dismal Swamp region — thousands of square miles — has just been overrun by a terrible fire. Love to all inquiring friends. A kiss to our dear children. Your husband, H. B. On his returning, still far from well, his affectionate people determined to send him to Europe for a year, continuing his salary and paying his expenses. All arrangements completed, he sailed on the ship Victoria on the first of July, 1845. VOYAGE. 115 CHAPTER YIII. JOURNEY IN EUROPE. A voluminous journal, foithfully but hastily written in the midst of his wayfarings, is the record of this foreign journey. The folloAving ex- tracts from this and from his letters ai'e given, not with the jjuqiose of leading the reader in a continuous line of travel over paths since then too well worn, but for the sake of showing what the thronging impres- sions of such a journey were to the traveller whose mental growth had been hitherto of necessity much from within. On one of the Sundays of his voyage he preached a sennon written on board ship, — a hasty production, but one so full of life and beatity that it is said to have excited the greatest interest among the passen- gers. The friendship with Captain Morgan, then begun, w\as one of the chief pleasures of the voyage. Dr. Bushnell shared with many men of letters the kindly hospitalities on sea and shore which Captain Morgan delighted to bestow, and which have caused his name to be associated with the literature of his time. Among the passengers was Bayard Taylor, then a young writer unknown to fame, in whose evident, though undeclared, abilities Horace Bushnell took a quick interest. The jjleasant acquaint- ance of the voyage was afterwards kept alive by Mr. Taylor's occasional visits. In his first letter, written on shipboard, to his wife, he says : — We have a very pleasant company of passengers, and the captain is as fine a fellow as I ever expect to see anywhere. I wish I could give you any impression of the sea, but I de- spair. Put down this first of all, that you can never see the water more than four miles distant. The heavens make a great bowl over you, and you go on, on, on under the bowl. In the night, if yon go on deck and it is cloudy, you can see nothing save the ship and the foam around it. The motion seems more rapid by far than it is. On one occasion the ship 116 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHXELL. seemed like a spirit rushing through outer darkness and dash- ing the brimstone fires about along its path. In a bright sun- shine nothing can exceed the life and brilliant animation of the scene, when the ^A'aves are tossing into crests of foam, a whole liquid acre in each, the ship throwing up her head into the air, then plunging down the other side of a billow ; the water colored by reflection of the deep unearthl}^ blue of the skj, the surface gleaming joyfully, and dancing like a lively girl ; and a solemn, stately roar filling the whole circumference of nature, like an anthem rising to God from a new-created world. If, having your direction across the waves, you cast your eye forward over the bow of the ship and hold it there, so as not to bring the side- waters into view, you see, of course, only the side of the waves that is sliding down towards you, and you seem to be rushing up a tremendous river that is pouring down like the rapids of Niagara upon you. The im- pression is awful and sublime beyond conception, and not the less so that you seem to be still victorious, pressing up and up with an undiscouraged power, breasting the everlasting river and braving its tumult. Well, here I am, separated by three fourths the width of an ocean from all that is dear to me on earth — alone, alone. I go out at the sunsetting and early evening, and hang ray legs over the stern of the vessel, and sit with my face to my coun- try and my dear wife and children, with how many and strange thoughts contesting in me. AVhat are they doing? Their conversation ? Do they look upon this moon with me ? Are they sad or happy ? O God, all is known to Thee ! Thou art our common bond of love, our preserver, the author of all we have enjoyed in our earthly union. Keep her, keep them all ! To the Same. Bristol, July 24, 1845. ... On the afternoon of the 19th we had a splendid and exciting scene. I was in my berth, just falling into a sleep, when they came rattling at the door to say that some great ships were at hand. While I was debating whether to get up, they came again, crying out, " A fleet of war !'' I went on ENGLAND. 117 deck, and it was indeed a splendid sight, as the ships were rising up like mountains of canvas, the sunlight on the side towards us, and rushing down before the wind upon us. Within half an hour we were in the very midst of them, sail- ing through their line. The fleet consisted of ten line-of-bat- tle ships of the largest class, including a steam-frigate. To me it was peculiarly impressive, because it was the first dem- onstration of England. Drawing near her coast and look- ing for the shore, here she pours the volume of thunder and power by which she has ruled the sea and made herself great in renown. I felt the scene more as a symbol than as a mere fact. Its import was its sublimity. On Monday, the 21st, we were boarded by a pilot oif Lizard Point. Considering that the east wind at this season is likely to hold, I, with eight other passengers, went on board the pilot-boat, and reached land at Falmouth at seven o'clock, about nineteen days and three quarters from Sandy Hook. As we neared the shore and coasted along it, I was impressed with a new feeling by the shore itself — a bold, perpendicular rock, sometimes rising into a turret as high as the land adjacent, but generally meet- ing and supporting a very steep declivity of land, one fourth or half the way up, the land in full and high cultivation down to definite lines of meeting with the rock, green with pasture (where the herds must needs look out, or they will slip off the wall of England into the sea) or waving with wheat and barley — all of which, again, was a fine symbol of England, an old country, cultivated to the last inch of land, and walled about like a fortification or military post in the sea. . . . IS'ext day, rode on the royal mail-coach, in less than ten honrs, more than a hundred miles on the gallop and the run, up and down long, steep hills of macadamized road to Exeter. Here I saw cultivation contending with the moors that cover the high hills, vast landscapes of rolling field in high produc- tion, where it is so bleak that not a tree grows ; the mines of tin, iron, and copper tearing ont the bowels of the earth and building mountains of rubbish ; the tall ventilators and chim- neys crowning the hills and rising in the valleys ; yonder a rock rising. in front of a church and overtopping it, when in 118 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. all the rolling landscape not a rock or stone can elsewhere be seen ; and there, on a conical pile shooting np into the clouds, a church built by a mariner as the fultilment of his vow. Here, in Exeter, I spent the morning of yesterday in Kouge- mont Castle and the Cathedral. The Cathedral is a grand old structure of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It lias the grandest organ in England. I was there at the morning service, and the music, rolling over the screen and through those long sweeps of arch, was enough to make an American feel all over. The service was music throughout, the architecture was music. I came av/ay, and brought on here a cathedral with me. But somehow I lost it in the night, and do not iind myself any better Christian this morn- ing than I was yesterday. I attended this morning the Ca- thedral service in Bristol. I looked into the choir, and saw there an old negro, only, to be edified, and he rolled up his eyes at me with a kind of official look, as if all the religion belonged to him. Doubtless it was his standing business to be the worshipper. In marched a troop of boys in white, two priests, vergers, etc., and the service began. I then took a peep through the glass of the door, and behold the boys, who w^ere chanting away at the Lord's Prayer, were grinning at each other as if it was all a joke. On the first of August he left London for a trip through Oxford and other places of note to Chester. Of Kenilworth and Coventry he wrote as follows to his wife's mother, whose Davenport ancestors had lived in Coventry : Birmingham, August 4, 1845. . . . The ruins of Kenilworth I will not undertake to de- scribe. They cannot be described so as to give you the feel- ing which is all in all. What tournaments have here been celebrated ! Here was the tilt-yard, here the prison, here the painted Gothic window of the great banqueting-hall. There hung the clock whose hands were set at two, the banqueting- hour w'hen Queen Bess came here as a guest, to say that all the time was banquet. Here were siege, and war, and wassail, and treachery, and treason. Now all is silent but the swal- lows cliattering in the ivy-clad towers, and the rain-storm beat- COVENTRY. 119 ing and dripping on a stranger from a new world. I stopped at Coventry on my return,— old, old, old! I entered two grand old cliurclies to look for the Davenports, but ques- tioned the sexton's wife in vain. Two strangers advised me to go into an old hall adjacent to the church. I found it was the Town-hall, called St. Mary's. The windows are of ancient stained glass, with the names of old mayors wrought in, in black letters. In the end of the hall was a fresco, vastly older than the art of painting. Some workmen who were fitting up this ]3lace for a court showed me a door opening into the Justices' room. I entered, found it hung with portraits, and there, behold, between Queen Elizabeth on one side and James I. on the other, was Davenport — a fine, sober, stately -looking man in a scarlet robe, with a sash, a ruff, a cap, and gloves in hand. His face is longer than old John's,* with a great deal more of sentiment. We must not tarry over his descriptious of Oxford, Warwiek, and Chester, though he deeply felt their ancient charm. At Liverpool he took steamer for Glasgow, and thus had a glimpse of the Scotch coast. At Glasgow, " sick at heart of being forever a stranger," he presented letters, but was singularly unfortunate in finding every one absent or in- different. He was therefore glad to push on in his solitude to the Lakes, where he found Nature's hospitalities and a free and simple society awaiting him. Inversnaid, Scotland, August 10, 1845. My dear Wife, — Tt will require a little of geographical detail to tell you where I am. Take your map, follow up Loch Lomond northward till you come to a point against the upper extremity of Loch Long, a salt-water bay connected with the Clyde. I am on the right hand of Loch Lo- mond, at a point about four miles farther up than the one just named, where tourists cross over to -Loch Katrine. I am in a snug little house, the only one in sight on this shore — a house of one story, in a little seven -by -nine room under the roof, having one scuttle -window, through which I look out on the lake and the beautiful scenery of * The ancestor of the American branch of the family. 9 120 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. glen and mountain on the opposite shore. Close bj the house, a cataract leaps down among tlie rocks from one shelf to another till it is lost in the lake. This, I suppose, once turned a mill, for the place is called Inversnaid Mill, — the scene is that of Wordsworth's "Highland Girl." A mile distant is the cave of Eob Koy. I pass to-morrow climbing over the rocks on my Shetland pony, five miles to Loch Ka- trine, the original residence of Rob Roy, and the hut where Helen Macgregor was born. Read the " Gathering of Clan Gregor" and the song of Roderic Dhu, call up the old days of black-mail, the scenes of feud and blood, and you will have the historical geography of the place at least. Xothing can possibly exceed the beauty, the natural romance, if I may so speak, of this same Loch Lomond. The bare, green, rock-rib- bed hills piercing the sky and almost tearing it, one might fancy, with their sharp, jagged outline ; the glens opening between the peaks, and showing one platoon of mountains behind another ; the cloud-shadows floating across them, and on the lake, in which they are reflected ; the light streaming down aslant the irregular face of one hill, while another is under a deep, murky shade, bringing out the golden yellow from the greens wherever it strikes, and showing the very line of the pencil, as you sometimes see it in the clouds ; the eternal rock played with and upon by the changing hours, — if this be not beauty, I know not what can be. Yes, my dear ■wife, and it is society too ! . . . I came up the lake, of course in a rain, for it rains every day. But this morning the weather seemed more clear than usual ; and there has been no time since I landed when I seemed to have so much feeling of society as when I looked out of my little scuttle-window on the gorgeous scene of light and grandeur before me. I expected to spend the day here, and to enjoy it too. Indeed, though nobody stops here longer than for a night, I have been half tempted to go into winter- quarters. Knowing that there was no church in the region, I designed to worship in the templed hills, as Jacob did. But I noticed, passing down before the door after breakfast, three rustic Highlanders, — two men and a woman, — dressed in A FREE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. 121 their Sunday clothes, manifestly ; and I went out and accost- ed them. " Well, my good friends, are you going to church'^'' " Yes," said the old lady (for such I will call her) ; " an it may be ye wull go wi' us." " And where are you going ?" " To the Free Church at Tarbet." " But that is a great way off, is it not ?" " Och," said the old lady, " it is not too far : we go over in a boat, and then it is only about three miles and a half ; and a gude, nice road it is." I recollected that it had generally rained in the afternoon, and said, " But it will rain, i fear, and I shall get wet." The old lady was evidently fearful that I was going to profane the day of God by travel, as everybody does here. I saw it in her countenance. She immediately said, in the most respectful manner possible, and with a voice full of softness and persuasion, which made even the rough, hard Scotch a sound of music (what tongue is there that a woman's voice cannot sweeten ?), " Yes, sir, but ye maun trust Providence for that." A tear came into my eyes; I could not keep it back. Other words had passed, for the men were forward to urge me to go with them ; and as the last Sabbath was their communion, they thought their minister would have something good for me to-day. I de- termined at once to go with them. I found, too, that they were shepherds, and recollected that the shepherds were a race honored by the first annunciation of the Eedeemer and the visit of angels. I felt, too, the sweetness of this Christian love. Here was society, and my impulse was to see what would come of it. I took my seat with them in the boat ; found a beautiful, grand road along the other shore, neat enough to grace the entrance to a castle. I talked with the old lady, going on while the men fastened the boat, and learned that she was the mother of twelve children. I told her about America, and found her, as to all matters of relig- ious character, exceedingly correct in her judgments,— wise in the true sense of the term. By-and-by a cart overtook us, and she was invited to ride. I threw in my overcoat, which she brought me after we came to the church, as if she had undertaken to make me comfortable. When the men fell in with others, something was said, I perceived, 122 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. about me, and I fell into conversation with tlietn. By-and- by one of my old comrades overtook two very genteelly dressed ladies, who were walking their two miles to church. They shook hands with him very cordially. I joined them, and went into conversation with them. The whole scene was so primitive and picturesque, and withal so beautifully Christian, that my heart overflowed with delight. The church was a little snug building, and in a style of simplicity suited to the people. Isothing could exceed the reverent manner of the worshippers. They sang from their old version of the Psalms, the lyrical merit of which you know. A plain homespun fellow, sitting in a little desk under the pulpit, led the singing in an old, nasal, tremulous manner, — Dundee, of course ! Then followed a prayer, very laborious and fervent, three quarters of an hour long. A chapter of sixty or seven- ty verses was read. Then came the sermon, about an hour and a half long, correct in language as could be expected of an educated Iliglilander, rank limited -atonement, Scotch orthodox, and yet all divine love to a guilty world. The Bible was beaten severely, as if the scourging of Christ was represented in action ; and yet it was no pantomime. It re- minded me all the way of that old prince of preachers, the Eev. Mr. Mucklewrath. I was carried straight back to the times of the Covenanters, and saw, as I never expected to see, that Sir Walter's pictures are no caricatures. I had, of course, a certain kind of historical interest in the worship; yet I could but think that the old shepherdess would have made a better service. Another singing followed, then a long prayer, which closed the English service. Then, after a dis- mission, was to follow immediately the Gaelic service, mak- ing in all a continuous pull for the stout Highland preacher of about five hours ! I retired, and found my way back to my little Scotch chamber, to think of my own dear people and dear wife and children. It was a good day — the best and sweetest I have spent since leaving home. On Monday I passed down Loch Katrine in a row-boat, ten miles, the only passenger. The lower end of the lake is closed in among the Trossachs, wild, broken hills, whose bases are covered with EDINBURGH. 123 birch, the greenest and most graceful of trees — sterility and rock made graceful and verdant. As soon as you reach the Lowlands cultivation begins, the very highest cultivation I have seen. ... I met in the Highlands, and on my way down to Edinburgh, all England going np to the shooting season, w^hich began day before yesterday — dukes, and footmen, and dogs, of course. If they find as many birds as I have seen dogs, they will have a splendid season of it. To the Same. London, August 16, 1845. You perceive that I am now at my old centre of motion. I returned to London last Saturday morning, having swept a path from Newcastle, about tliree hundred miles, in a single day, and stopped two hours in York to see the old Minster. A most noble structure it is, the finest by far I have seen in England. At Edinburgh I was not fortunate in my letters, though less desperately nnfortunate than in Glasgow ; Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, Candlish, and Alexan- der w^ere all out of town. I called on Mrs. G , and was very kindly received. She invited me to stay to a family dinner, which I could not do ; and as she was likely to be compelled to ask me to a formal dinner, which is a soinewhat formidable affair, I asked myself to breakfast. I was a little troubled lest I had not done the politest tiling possible ; but I concluded, on mature deliberation, that it was, on the whole, the best hit in that way that I ever made. At any rate, I thought I could see tliat I gave a pleasant relief, and w\as welcomed in a manner that was exceedingly agreeable. Scot- land, as you know, is all theology just now, and they have just been trying Dr. Brown for the heresy of a general atone- ment. Mr. G pushed, very naturally, into- theolog}^ ; and I was not reluctant, as it gave me an opportunity of seeing what is the tenor of thinking here. Mrs. G , too, was quite as deep in these subjects as her husband. I left Edinburgh on Friday, and stayed for the night at Melrose, close by the old Abbey, which you know is consid- ered one of the most beautiful ruins in the realm. It could 124 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. not well be more so. The Abbey itself is gone ; nothing but the church remains, and that only in fragments. I went immediately to view it, in the dusk of evening ; ascended a spiral staircase of stone in one of the turrets, and came out upon the arch, once covered with a stone roof, but now load- ed, externally, with earth and weaving grass, — Sir Walter Scott having had the earth placed on this and one of the other ga- bles to protect it from the weather. I heard a ticking near me, and, while I was listening to find whence it came, the clock struck the hour, in a little bastard turret that had been stuck up in the ruins to serve the purpose, — the only remnant of use in a temple once vocal with chants, and vespers, and matins, and masses for the dead. Time sits upon the ruin, counts the hours, and says. Behold my work ! On the 20tli of August, iu haste to reach Switzerland before the season should be too far advanced, he left London for the Continent, feeling very- solitary. On the boat for Ostend he was accosted by a stranger, who pi'oved to be a young American ; and as it was the plan of both to fol- low the Rhine to Switzerland, they fell into company. Extract from a jpiiblished Letter. The two most striking objects in Belgium, — two that are seen in perpetual proximity and hideous contrast, — are the magnificent churches or cathedrals and the profligate-looking priests. It is not the religious traveller only, looking at ob- jects through the medium of a refined spiritual perception, who makes the observation. The contrast meets the eye like that of light and darkness. One is scarcely ever out of sight of some grand cathedral, never out of sight of the priesthood, who meet him by the roadside, in the rail-ears, at every cross- ing of the streets, revealing by a certain sensual air and greasy look the loss of that virtue which it is their ofiice to maintain. Never shall I forget the soul-sickness that I suf- fered, for example, in the great cathedral at Antwerp, watch- ing the confessors' boxes: — on one side an ingenuous-looking boy, or simple, conscientious-looking woman ; on the other, a red-faced, sensual son of Eli, in his dirty habiliments, receiv- ing the whisper of a guilty mind, and the simple story, per- THE REFORMATION OF RONGE AND CZERSKI. 125 haps, of its struggles witli evil, — those struggles which to the mind of God are the purest incense that ever rises from the .Avorld of mortals. I was present, too, on the Sabbath, when the vast area of that magnificent edifice was filled with wor- shippers. I saw the gorgeous rites transacted before the im- ages. I saw the multitude famishing for lack of knowledge in the service of an unknown tongue ; and I was able still, — in the grandeur of the place and the assemblage, the magnifi- cence of the rites, the cadence of the response, and the swell of the anthem, — to extract, by a little spiritual alchemy, the food of worship, to bring into play some great, and power- ful, and, I trust, good emotions. But wlien I saw, near the close of the service, the ghostly procession winding through the crowd by my side, the central figure of which was as bloat- ed, sin-worn, sorry-looking a miscreant as I ever beheld, walk- ing in a cloud of incense, and trying to draw an air of sanc- timony upon features that refused to be sanctified, my heart sank w' ithin me ; feeling was gone, worship was ended. I had no alchemy left that could distil another drop of dew or raise another flame of emotion. I have taken some pains to inquire into the real merits and ascertain the prospects of the new Reformation that is going on, under the first impulse of Ronge and Czerski, in Ger- many. The secession comprises already a hundred and thirty churclies, and, it is computed, about thirty thousand people. At Frankfort they worship at present, I was told, in the Ger- man Reformed Church, after morning service of that church is ended ; and so great is the crowd that only a fraction of those who come can find a place within the doors. Their worship is in the vernacular tongue, without images, or can- dles, or incense, and is closely resembled in its form to that of the Lutherans. Preaching is an important part of the ser- vice. The controversy is warm and active on both sides, as might be expected. But while the movement has rushed on- ward thus far with so great power and celerity, many are ap- prehensive that it will come to its limit and spend itself very soon. Ronge, it is said, is a rationalist ; whether justly, or because of the strong antagonistic expressions he would nat- 126 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. iirallj use in his conflict with the mystical and ghostly doc- trines of church authority and the cliurch legends of Roman- ism, I cannot say. Certain it is that many persons distin- guished for evangelical piety want confidence in him. Czer- ski is supposed to be a true believer, but is still under a cloud of delusions, from which he has only half emerged. He is generally acknowledged, however, to be a truly pious and godly man ; but it is a common opinion that neither he nor Itonge is equal to the task of guiding the new Heformation. The common remark is that a Luther is wanting. Tiie acces- sion of Theiner, who is a much stronger man than either, and M'ho, it is supposed, will be called to the charge in Berlin, is thought to be imjDortant. He will be able, it is thought, to mould the rather incongruous elements into some shape of uniformity. Otherwise, it is predicted that the followers of Ronge and Czerski, who have hitherto acted with a degree of concert, will not long be held together. A convention was held recently at Leipsic, which w^as called Council I., to de- vise some platform of order and doctrine. But it has been represented, I know not with what truth, as a meeting for good eating and drinking, rather than a council of Church fathers. They were able to agree, it is said, only in a single Article, aflirming the supreme authority of the Scriptures, leaving it to eacli congregation to work out its own way, for the present, in all but this, and hoping that time will prepare the way for some more general agreement. In liis joiirual, side by side with his imjjressious of the Cathedral of -Cologne, — which, he says, "made everything else he had seen appear a mere toy," — occurs this notice of one of the minor churches: — Cologne, August 37. I sallied out early for a random tramp through the town. Saw many of the churches. St. Martin's, with many of this region, has what I think is a Byzantine stamp, probably brought from the East by the crusaders. By- the -way, this kind of structure, which is very fine, might, with suitable modifications, take a mould well adapted to Puritan churches in America. It is simple and severe, with sliarp roof, tall, HEIDELBERG AND ZURICH. 127 naked spire ; windows with rounded tops and cut up by broad niullions, some of them liaving the parts taller towards the centre ; also circular windows, square towers, cornice plain, with pendants in relief on the wall. Generally the end of the choir is a half-circle, with a gallery cut for monks or nuns under the eaves, to show them going to worship. Heidelberg, September 2. Eose in the morning and opened my window upon the ruins overhanging my hotel, but with no relish for the pros- pect. Possibly I am a little nervous from a low diet yester- day. I raised once or twice, as it seemed, from my lungs; fancied I had a bad sensation there, and associated the sign with the lassitude and thinness of flesh which I have suffered for months. Is it possible, I said for the first time, that I am to be the victim of consumption ? The question made a strug- gle in my heart, brought up my family, my people, my sins, my distance from home in a strange land. But I found rest in God, at least some degree of rest. How great a comfort that I can never pass out of his hands in life or death ! This last note, so significant of the future, is immediately followed by a minute description of the castle, which he visited, it seems, as soon as he had breakfasted, showing how little he gave way to feelings of illness and depression. To his VTife. Zurich (Sabbath evening), September 7. I have seen, since I last wrote you, a great many things full of interest and power. I have never been out of sight of a castle, sometimes in full sight of half a dozen at once. Gen- erally they are in ruins ; and I could not but thank God, in passing them, that we have now a better day. The Hanseatic League combined to destroy them, and joy be to their ruins ! Let them stand for all coming ages as a monument of a day when there was no law. Frankfort is a very fresh-looking, prosperous town. They have torn down the ramparts, and made them a public walk, or garden, quite round the city. The core of the city is old, 128 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. of course, and crowded, as it must be when walls were wanted for defence. Again I say, God be thanked that a day has come when laws are better than walls. At Frankfort I had a very curious set of adventures one af- ternoon, both amusing and touching. I had two letters, one from Mrs. B , and another from Mr. Weld, which I took a cab to deliver, hoping in that way to find the places. My German cabman knew the Englishman, Dr. Pinkerton, but he took me to another Englishman, as it would haj^pen. While I was stammering with the porter at the door, the gentleman overheard me, and came down. I showed him the address of my letter. He said that Dr. Pinkerton was not in town, — had been absent for some days. He saw that I w'as a stranger, and felt somewhat lost in my strange language, as, indeed, I did. I never felt my solitude among men so oppressive, and was yet more oppressed by ray dreadful cold. As he went to the gate to direct me, — for I concluded to leave my let- ter with the daughter of Dr. P., — he said, "And will you not come, sir, and take tea with me to-morrow evening, since Dr. Pinkerton is out of town ?" I was never so touched by any act of kindness in my life, and I replied, " You have offered a hospitality so gratuitous and spontaneous that I shall certain- ly come." After delivering my letter, where I found rea- son to suspect who my new friend was, I set off to deliver the other. It was to a German who could speak English; but my driver had got it in his head that this also was an Englishman. The name Ivosel we read Eosel, also ; so he began to inquire of ladies here and there for an Englisher, Eosel, first at one window, then at another. "JS^o, no," said I; "not Englisher — German!" But it did no good. Last of all, lie inquired again, the fourth or fifth time, of a young lady in a bovver by the garden-fence. My gloom w^as broken by the hospitality just received, and I fell into a state of glee. I laughed, and the good ladies laughed too. After driving about and about long enough, the fun became exhausted. I stopped the driver, and delivered my letter into the hands of a gentleman by the roadside, who read the name right, and immediately directed the driver to the place. We passed b}'' FRANKFORT AND LAKE ZURICH. 129 the young lady's bower the third time, and stopped at the very next gate, some thirty feet off. TJie servant showed me up-stairs, and, instead of producing Mr. Kosel, produced liis wife. I asked, " Can you speak English ?" " No." She ask- ed, " Can you speak French ?" " No." Then we went on ; she, to tell me, I suppose, that her husband was dead, or be- yond sea, or gone to market ; I, to tell her w^io Mr. Weld was. We stammered and stuck in thick darkness, and iinally burst out into a loud laugh in our mutual perplexity. She showed me to a seat. Bless me ! what could I do by sitting? I took her hand and bid her good-bye, and she bid me gute7i some- thing. I went off laughing, and she stayed, laughing — one echoing the other. From the Journal. September 10. On the way back to Lachen by canal, near Lake Zurich, we came in sight of a bridge which we saw crowded with people. We came to it, and found the whole hamlet of peasants out to witness the departure of emigrants for America. Their faces were full of animation, and some of feeling. It sound- ed sweetly to me to hear America blended with the strange words that were unintelligible. It brought my country home to me, as dear above all others, to see these people, living in the most beautiful scenery of the world, turning their eyes and their longing footsteps tow\ards America; but sweeter than all, to distinguish among the parting words — Jesus Christ ; for that bespoke a better country for all. Little do these men, who are lugging their silver on board the boat so earnestly and forsaking their homes, know what awaits them in the fevers, and chills, and toils of a new life in the wilderness. I was deeply moved by this scene, as deeply as by the grandest scenes of nature that I have looked upon. We climbed over the hills, by diligence, to Schwytz, which we reached in the evening. We passed by Einsiedeln, the fa- mous old Abbey whither so many thousand pilgrims go ev- ery year. In climbing the hills on foot, I passed by four pil- grims, old and poor, who, I found, were on their way thither. 130 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. They were counting their beads and singing their Swiss hymns as they went. Which is actuated by the best and truest piety, — one of these pilgrims, infatuated as they cer- tainly are, in a sense ; or I, roving far and near to look on the scenes of nature and the works of man, — all, alas! with so little of earnest, pure devotion ? Judge not, that ye be not judged. The descent to Schwytz was by an older road, down, down, down, as if never to stop. The town, pitched together pell-mell, is a queer-looking cup of a place, environed by all that is lovely and sublime. It is situated in one of the most beautiful valleys conceivable : two sharp peaks piercing the sky behind it ; oj^posite, an irregular sweep of mountains, backed by higher summits covered with snow ; and in a gap that opens to the north-west, a slip of the Lake of Lu- cerne, sleeping between the mountains. It was the brave men of this deep, grass}'- dell who, on the field of Morgarten, gave a name and. liberty to their countrj-. September 11. About four in the morning the matin bells began to ring, and kept it up at intervals till eight. L^nable to sleep, I rose at length, and went across the street to the old church where the mass was performing. The priests' work was mummery, but the people made responses or went through a litany in German, all with loud, full voices, and with a manner of pro- found devotion. At the close, the priests led forth a proces- sion, with the cross and tall wax-candles, followed by women, — perhaps nuns, — with tapers, into the church-yard. There all, including children, by turns dipped a brush into a vessel of water and sprinkled it with the greatest solemnity on a grave. This is done on the seventh day after interment, on the same day of the next month, and the same of the next year ; the burial-service, therefore, is a year long. Can it be less than a merit of the Catholic religion, with all its attend- ant superstitions, that it keeps up so close and intimate a relation between the living and the dead ? September 20. I arrived at the top of the Scheideck, about seven thousand feet above the sea, close under the magnificent peak of Wet- THE SCHEIDECK. 131 terliorn. ... It greatly aided the impression here that donds were lying against the mountain and folding themselves about it as a veil, just opening occasionally to reveal the summit liung in mid -heaven, as it were, over us. We descended a little way, but lingered near the pass till almost sundown. As in a deep dell, far down below us, lay the green valley of Grindelwald, sprinkled all the way up to the highest line of pasture on both sides with the summer huts of the cheese- makers. Above was the peak of Wetterhorn, and Mettenberg and Eiger on the east, heading off the valley. We found a boy with a loaded blunderbuss ready to give US an echo, which rattled and pealed and cracked with re- duplicated noises like thunder, far up and away among the veiled tops of the Oberland, drawing a response from each. Then we fell to trying our voices through a flaring wooden trumpet that was offered us. I found that my loudest bass shout produced an effect almost superhuman, and I was tempted and urged to continue it, till I was quite hoarse. Up rolled the sound into the unknown, misty world, prolong- ing itself in swells and pulsations so seraphic that it seemed as if the choirs of heaven had replied. I never could have thought it possible for any single note to have such a depth and ravishing power. Not all the notes I ever heard had so much music in them. Presently the veil began to grow thin. Looking up, we saw far up in the sky a pure white terrace, like a battlement of the upper world, shining faintly through ; and while we were gazing and w^oudering at the stupendous height, we saw breaking forth, still far above on the right, a tall granite pin- nacle, and suddenly again on the left another, yet a thousand feet higher. September 21 (Sunday). A most beautiful day, passed at Grindelwald. Our hotel is close under the mountains which terminate the valley on the east. Wetterhorn and Eiger overhang it, and a glacier lies close under it on the east. Tlie garden seems to smile with flowers, close upon it. Went to church in the morning to see worship, i. e., Protestant worship, — I had seen Komisli 132 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. before. The old church was crowded with men and women, all in their Sunday dresses of homespun, — hard, brawny faces, dark with toil, and sharp also. A man was reading Scripture to them from the choir. When the minister entered they all rose. The most perfect order and stillness prevailed. They stood in prayer without exception, the men with their faces in their hats. I understood not, yet I felt the worship, that there is " neither Greek nor Jew." Howbeit, there are walls of language. The beautiful smiling valley, the grandeur of the overhanging Alps, the snows, fit emblems hung out in heaven to incite to purity of heart, — all made it a pleasant day September 22. Started early for the Wengern. . . . Nothing can exceed the beauty of these Alpine views, when from high ground we look down into some deep gulf of green, and across to a snow- crowned region of peaks, only now and then displaying their outline, and sometimes making a landscape above the clouds and under them at the same time. The light is so magical, blue and white, shade and. sun, depth and height, all blended into one picture, and that varying its forms and colors every moment. The Jungfrau, which is the finest of the range, was under a veil of cloud as we rounded the Wengern and descended under it. The clouds, we hoped, would blow away ; but I know not what we should have gained in impression, for the incessant rock and thunder of the avalanches in the top, far beyond our sight, indicated below only by torrents of powdered ice, m.ade an impression of sublimity and awe that was but the deeper for the clouds. The very clouds themselves seemed to be ice-powder smoking in the air; in- deed they were so, in fact. The mountain smoked and thun- dered in the midst ; only the wrath was cold, not hot ; but it was even the more terrible on that account — for when is Jehovah's throne so dreadful as when it quakes with cold? The sound of an avalanche is itself more sublime than thun- der, but it is terrestrial, not aerial. It is overhead, but near ; the very sound reports of ruin. We know that the bolt has struck ; we hear it crack with a hollow peal in the smoking ALPINE SCENES. 133 tops among the clouds. Then comes the phmge, the contu- sion, tlie bounding fragments, as if a broken-down castle were sliding down the hill and rattling its stones from cliflE to cliff, till all is ground to powder too fine to make a noise ; then the white dust-river, pouring off some lower cliff, showing to the eye what the ear has heard going on. One is not fairly still before another comes ; the ice thunder is never over, and the sense of eternity is added to the sense of power. Far up in the cloud-region, yet on earth, we hear the tumult of the frost-giants waging perpetual battle; or, rather say, Je- hovah himself, whose tremendous attributes, without battle, roll down the witness of their power unspent to mortals in every age. To his Wife. ^ Berne, September 25, 1845. How can I make you see the desolation of these mountain solitudes? The cataracts leaping down every mile or two out of the clouds ; the giant forms of rock and snow piercing the sky; the lakes overhung with alps in their brilliant green, and reflecting the snow-capped mountains ; the smiling val- leys bosomed in ramparts of ice ; the glaciers glittering in their beds between the ribs of the mountains ; the avalanches thundering above unseen in the clouds, and rolling their pow- dered ice down the cliffs at your side ; the granite peaks that have toppled down but yesterday in acres of ruin ; the slides that have buried in a moment whole villages, filled up lakes, and rolled a wave over churches ; the changes of light and shade, cloud and sun, distance and proximity, — how shall I ever make you see these with me ? Could I but give you a glance at the sunset scene of this very evening from the city of Berne, I should open a new world of glory and grandeur on your eyes. From a terrace rounding out "above that of the cathedral I watched for it. Berne must be forty-five or fifty miles from the Oberland Alps, in a country of hill and valley, as verdant and luxuriant as can be conceived. Across this, lighted up by the slanting sun, your eye passes to a high, and still another higher, range of mountains sinking away into a blue, dim color. Then, above all these, rise the white, 134 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. sky - piercing peaks of tlie Oberland, filling up about one eighth of the circle of the horizon. Between three and four o'clock you see only two or three of these ; and having their shaded side towards you, their profile alone is lighted ; and they rise so high above the common floating clouds that they seem themselves to be only a higher cloud, anchored in the sky. By five o'clock the tops of the whole range are out, clear and white, above a long, dark stratum of cloud that lies stretched between them and the lower mountains. The sun pours into the interstices below, revealing patches of white, interspersed with rock, and the summits are seen floating on the dusky cloud-region above, a realm of icebergs. But just at the setting the clouds rise up and fade away; then stand out, first in a pale, sickly white, as if the cloud had only be- come invisible, without being removed ; and finally, in a few minutes more (and by a change perfectly perceptible, as if life were returning to the pallid face of the dead), yellowed in the rays of the sun, swung round so as to j^our his full tide into their faces, — Wetterhorn, Schreckhorn, Finster-Aarhorn, Eiger, Munch, Jungfrau, Blumlis, — a wall of glittering ingots piled up to the sky. I have had, thus far, as fine weather for Switzerland as I could desire, and I have never enjoyed so much in so short a time ; my cup has been full to the brim of wonder, joy, and delight in every shape. And yet I am frank to say that none of these things move me unless when I connect the visible with the invisible, and see in the forms of grandeur around me types of that tremendous Being who inhabits and glorifies all. Oftentimes, when jaded and flagging in interest, have I found that a simple exercise of the imagination which never tires, connecting what I see with some spiritual import, has roused me at once and restored the freshness of my relish. To the Same. Geneva, October 7, 1845. I left Berne, the day after I wrote you, for Freyburg and Lausanne. The charm of Freyburg is its two suspension- bridges. You approach it in the air, like those spiders who FREYBURG AND VEVAY. 135 sail tlic air upon the web they spin. This place is the Swiss metropolis of Jesuitry, You meet them, in single file and in platoons, everywhere in and about the town. Merciful Heav- en, what a Christianity is this ! You need to see it and smell it before you can know it. But it makes a most loyal peo- ple— holds the populace, Mr. AYoods would say, under such excellent control and government. Poor abject creatures ! They are governed in Christ's name out of their property, their wits, their manhood. They are not under law but be- low it; there is no more danger of rebellion among them than among the horses. The only insurgency they will ever be guilty of is in begging, spite of denial. And yet they seem to be industrious. Their lot is to dig and not to be ashamed to beg beside. The Catholic and Protestant can- tons are sprinkled over the map like squares in a patch- work, and you can tell to a certainty when you enter a Catholic canton, for the beggars will run to give you the sign.* I spent the Sunday at Vevay. It was a quiet, beautiful. Sabbath -like daj^, with a soft blue atmosphere, and clouds breaking apart to let the softened light fall upon the hills and mountains. Nature worshipped at her altars, and the cloud of incense smoked about them all. On Monday went to Martigny. Next morning set out once more on foot, in high spirits, for Chamouni, across the Col de Balme. We came upon the top in a driving wind, which we could hardly force our way into, and a cloud so thick that we could scarce- ly see five rods, much less see Mt. Blanc, which here, according to the books, is to burst on the eye with full grandeur in an instant. I arrived before the others, and went into the stone hut or lodge that is erected to take in travellers. A shabby, long-bearded fellow, who I thought was just the man to cut my throat, sat by the fire swallowing the last of what was meant for a dinner. I tried to make my French host under- stand who were coming, but in vain. He went out, when lo ! * The liberal coustitution adopted in 1848 has doubtless made great changes in the canton of Freyburg. 10 136 LIFE OF IIOEACE BUSIINELL. the ragamuffin spoke out in the finest English I thought I had ever heard. I saw at once that he was a gentleman in disguise. He entertained us afterwards for two or three hours with a most lively account of his adventures among the mountains, and of the Swiss Water -Cure, of which he had been a patient. I have all the while been getting up the spirit of adventure, w^anting to scale the mountains by new and untried paths, and get up somewhere above the world, but my comj)anions were of a tamer mould, con- tent with the horse -paths and the books. Perhaps it is well that I have been anchored by more sluggish disposi- tions, but it has all along been the greatest subtraction from my happiness that our exploits were the exploits of the books, our adventures in the travelled road of adven- ture. But we must see Mt. Blanc from the Col de Balme ; so we all decided to stay overnight. But after awhile the clouds, which had lifted once or twice, suddenly drew back, I was looking out of the port - hole or window, and, behold, Mt. Blanc ! I gave the word, and we rushed out in a heap to take our joy. Here it was, indeed, without a cloud, in full view from the bottom to the top. But I was disappointed. There was no such impression of grandeur and height as I exjiected. The reason was twofold. The slope of tlie sides of the mountain is too gradual. It is not top-heavy. It sleeps on its base ; and, secondlj^ we saw it from a position that was high and somewhat distant, so that the angle or par- allax of the summit was too small. And, I might add, there was no intervening mountain to hide the base, and call upon the imagination to supply the unknown, or give a scale by which to assist the actual measurement. I have observed a hundred times that the sublime requires the unknown as an element. A cathedral should never be finished. A moun- tain should be partially hidden by others or enveloped in clouds. The principle of omne ignotum pro magmfico has a broader application than the shallow and the book -gossips suspect. After gazing about fifteen minutes, I said to my two com- MONT BLANC. 137 panions, " Now for Cliamouni !" We set off in good earnest, and arrived about nine o'clock in tlie evening. . . . On October 2d we left Cliamouni for Geneva. A few miles down the valley the road began to wind round the gulf, on a shelf three or four hundred feet above the roaring Arve. One or two slopes or promontories began to intervene and cut oft" the base of Mt. Blanc, so as to assist the measure- ment, laying open* scenes in the foreground of surpassing wildness, and lifting the mountains in the background into their true grandeur. Hence onward to a point fifteen miles below Sallenches, the valley is romantic in the highest de- gree, winding round, under and between, walls of eternal rock, sometimes hanging their projecting masses over the road three or four thousand feet high. Here a water -fall drops down from the sky, leaping out into the sun so far that we see it without the profile of the mountain for three miles or more, glittering like a stream of jewels. Here the valley is shut in so that you seem fairly caught, like Joseph when he was dropped into the pit. Here it opens into a broad ex- panse of meadow. Here the mountain draws back, revealing the most beautiful farms and orchards sleeping on some high shelf or promontory. This is truly a fit adytum to the grand monarch of the mountains, and no one ought ever to go to Mt. Blanc except this way. The traveller goes on through gates of rock, opening to let him through ; he climbs and climbs again, with the roaring gulfs around him ; he sees here and there, as he approaches Cliamouni, more and more distinctly the mountain itself, piercing heaven with its snowy top ; and, last of all, the very snows themselves drifting round the summit and glittering as a frost-cloud in the sun. Thus he comes out upon the entire view with a measurement pre- pared in his mind. . . . Geneva is a very pleasant town, finely built on both sides of the Ehone, just as it leaves the lake. I went first to the Cathedral. Here Calvin reigned. This was the pulpit where he gave law to Geneva, and Puritanized England, and peopled America, and prepared a wave of lib- erty, to roll back as a wave of frenzy on France, and thus on Geneva itself. 138 LIFE OF IIOEACE BUSHNELL. Geneva, October 4. I called upon Dr. Mulan, outside the town. He is a most venerable- looking old man, with long, curled locks of gray falling on his shoulders. His look is benignant, but firm. He is a truly pious man, not wanting in point and brilliancy, but withal a little over-rigid or narrow in his views. " So, then, you are from dear America ?" he said. I conversed with him about the Christian Alliance. He ag^-eed as regards the value of the object, but did not seem at first to see how it could do any good. " Mt. Blanc (/. doubt, which dates the truly 7'omantic period of his history, I admired the pungency, turned by love into utter gentleness, — as of soft steel by rapid whirlings a cutting-tool is sometimes made, — with which he said he desired to put his opponent into " an attitude of comprehensive repugnance," meaning that in the strife was no personal hate. I think he had no capacity, with all his eminent powers, for enmity. Goodness and wisdom were the elements that amounted to genius in him, by both being so great. He preached in my pulpit on " Unconscious Influence." He exemplifies his own doctrine, at least for his and your friend, C. A. Baktol. To his Daughter. Hartford, January 17, 1848. My deak Child, — You can hardly guess how much we miss you. When our little circle is gathered round the par- lor fire at evening, we all take turns in saying, — perhaps breaking silence to say, — I wish now dear L w^as here. And the children ask, moreover, how long, how many months, will it be before she comes home ? And then I see how their souls are stretching and working after the measures of time, contriving in themselves how long a month is, and how long these months will be. Well, it is a blessed thing for them to know the measures of time through their affections, — how much better than to learn its measures through expectations of pleasure, appetite, or any selfish good. If we all had our clock in our hearts, measuring off our days by the love we exercise to friends, to mankind, and to God, we should make a friend of time also. We should live, in fact, a great while longer in a much shorter time. I have been greatly pleased, my dear daughter, by the spir- it of your letters, because I tliink I see that you are earnestly FATHERLY COUNSEL. 189 desirous of improvement. I hope, meantime, that you will be turning your thoughts to religion and to God, as well as to your studies. You have been religiously educated, and you are come now to an age when you must begin to be more responsible to yourself. Our prayer for you is, every day, that God would impart his grace to you and draw you on to a full choice of himself, and perform the good work which we trust he has begun in you. This would complete our happiness in you. I would recommend to you now that you set before you, as a distinct object, the preparing yourself to make a profession of the Saviour. Make this a distinct object of thought and of prayer every day. And do not inquire so much what you are, whether truly a Christian in heart or not, as how you may come into the full Christian spirit, to become unselfish, to have a distinct and abiding love to Christ. Unite yourself to Christ for life, and try to receive his beautiful and loving spirit. You will find much darkness in you, but Christ will give you light. Your sins will trouble you, but Christ will take away your sins and give you peace. Pray God, also, to give you his spirit, and do not doubt that his spirit will help you through all difllculties. In all your duties and studies, endeavor to do them for God and so as to please him. Make this, too, your pleasure, for assuredly it will be the highest pleasure. It may not so appear at first, but it will be so very soon. Nothing, you will see in a moment, can yield so sweet a pleasure as the love and pursuit of excellence, es- pecially that excellence which consists in a good and right heart before God. And you will be more likely to love this work and have success in it, if you set before you some fixed object, such as I have proposed. "We gave you to God in your childhood, and now it be- longs to you to thank God for the good we have sought to do for you, and try to fulfil our kindness by assuming for yourself what we promised for you. We feel very tenderly towards you, and we know that you love us ; and Christ loves us all more than we can love each other. We are a very happy family, and if we are all one together in Christ, it will secure our happiness in all future time. 'No pleasure will be 190 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. marred, and no blight will ever come upon the satisfaction we have in each other. May the good spirit of God, my dear child, guide you in your absence from us, be with you daily, and assist you to be wise. May every day be a happy day, because it is passed under the smile of your heavenly Father. Your loving father, Horace Bushnell. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 191 CHAPTER X. 18^8-1849. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE.— ADDRESS AT CAMBRIDGE DIVINITY SCHOOL.— ADDRESS AT HARVARD.- ADDRESS AT YALE.- AD- DRESS AT ANDOVER.— THE BOOK, "GOD IN CHRIST." — DIS- SERTATION ON LANGUAGE.— EFFECTS OF HIS VIEWS OF LAN- GUAGE UPON HIS WRITTEN STYLE. The private experience which opened the followhig year in Dr. Bushnell's life was, at the time, linown and understood only by his wife. She supplies this account of it : — " The year 1848 was the central point in the life of Horace Bushnell. It was a year of great experiences, great thoughts, great labors. At its beginning he had reached one of those headlands where new discoveries open to the sight. He had approached it through mental struggles, trials, and practical endeavor, keeping his steadfast way amid all the side-attrac- tions of his ceaseless mental activity. Five years before, God had spoken personally to him in the death of his beloved lit- tle boy, drawing his thonghts and affections to the spiritual and unseen, until, by slow advances, the heavenly vision burst upon him. He might well have said, what Edward Irving said of a like sorrow : — ' Glorious exchange ! He took my son to his own more fatherly bosom, and revealed in my bosom the sure expectation and faith of his own eternal Son.' " This more personal direction of his thoughts had interest- ed him in a new kind of reading, especially in Upham's ' Life of Madame Guyon,' and the ' Interior Life,' and tlie writings of Fenelon, which attracted his feeling by their devout fervor and unworldly standards. " ' I believed,' he afterwards said, ' from reading, especially the New Testament, and from other testimony, that there is 192 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. a higher, fuller life that can be lived, and set myself to attain it. I swung, for a time, towards quietism, but soon passed out into a broader, more positive state.' This phase of feel- ing, so foreign to his self-reliant, positive nature, served its uses on that very account ; but it could not long detain him from the more vigorous faith by which he apprehended Christ as the ' power of an endless life.' " In these studies, and in the devout application by which he sought to realize, in his own experience, the great possi- bilities unfolding to his conception, the New Year came in. On an early morning of February, his wife awoke, to hear that the light they had waited for, more than they that watch for the morning, had risen indeed. She asked, ' What have you seen V He replied, ' The gospel.' It came to him at last, after all his thought and study, not as something rea- soned out, but as an inspiration, — a revelation from the mind of God himself. " The full meaning of his answer he embodied at once in a sermon on ' Christ the Form of the Soul,' from the text, ' Until Christ be formed in you.' The very title of this ser- mon expresses his spiritually illuminated conception of Christ, as the indwelling, formative life of the soul, — the new-creat- ino- power of righteousness for humanity. And this con- ception was, soon after, more adequately set fortli in his book, ' God in Christ.' "That he regarded this as a crisis in his spiritual life is evident from his not infrequent reference to it among his Christian friends. Even as late as 18 71, when w^e were alone one evening, the conversation led back to this familiar sub- ject. In answer to a question, lie said, — ' I seemed to pass a boundary. I had never been very legal in my Christian life, but now I passed from those partial seeings, glimpses and doubts, into a clearer knowledge of God and into his inspirations, which I have never wholly lost. The change was into faith, — a sense of the freeness of God and the ease of approach to him.' " His own statement, made elsewhere, of the nature of faith, gives a deeper insight into his meaning. ' Christian faith,' INTELLECTUAL QUICKENING. 103 as he says, 'is the faith of a transaction. It is not the com- mitting of one's thought in assent to any proposition, but tlie trusting of one's being to a heing, there to be rested, kept, guided, moulded, governed, and. possessed forever.' . . . ' It gives you God, fills you with God in immediate, experi- mental knowledge, puts you in possession of all there is in him, and allows you to be invested with his character itself.' " This, then, was what faith brought to him. Referring, in a letter, to the nature of this divine experience, he wrote, ' I was set on by the personal discovery of Christ, and of God as represented in him.' This discovery brought him into closer relations to God as his personal friend, — the relations of confidence and reciprocity, with the warmth and glow of personal friendship. Such an opening of his whole being to the light had, of course, a marked effect upon his preaching. Speaking now from experimental knowledge and perception, it was the special work of his philosophic mind to set the inner experiences of the Christian life in rational forms, to show ' the reason of faith,' and the orderly and ' fixed laws by which God's most distinctly supernatural w^orks are deter- mined.' "The greatness of this change and its profound reality made him a new man, or rather the same man with a heaven- ly investiture. In this divine panoply, he was sent into the conflict which immediately followed the publication of ' God in Christ,' written the same year ; and he was able to meet it with the courage, the poise, and the consciousness of divine support and guidance that at length gave him his victory." Prepared by this private experience, which, as regards his thought, was not less than an inspiration and revelation; en- abling him to " spiritually discern spiritual things," he was about to make ready for an expression of his vision to the world, when unusual opportunities for such expression pre- sented themselves. The subjects on which he had obtained fresh light were largely matters in dispute between the Or- thodox and Unitarian bodies, then drawn up in battle array ao-ainst each other. The ground on which he stood was sin- 194 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. gularly separated from the positions of the two hostile camps. He stood alone, not more alone in Connecticut than he would have done in Massachusetts ; no indifferent spectator, and yet no sharer with either party in the strife. He saw through the smoke a vision, and heard in the din a music, to his thought far transcending in import all for which his brethren on either side were contending, and waited only for the mo- ment when he might hope to obtain a hearing, and speak in calmness his interpretation of what had been revealed. Strangely enough, the opportunity came at once on both sides, and he received invitations from Harvard, and Yale, and Andover to make addresses on important public occa- sions. The invitation from Harvard, to address their Divini- ty School in July, was received in March, and was accepted without hesitation, or that fear of misconstruction which would have restrained most men then in the orthodox ranks. He felt the occasion to be a very important one, not so much for its influence upon his own position as for the opportunity which it gave him to become a mediator between thinkers then so widely separated. That others shared this feeling, rating his power of influence higher far than he Avould have done, and, at the same time, fearing many things which he did not fear, is well illustrated by the following letter from his old friend. Bishop Burgess : — Gardiner, Maine, Marcli 20, 1848. Eeverend and dear Sik, — You may be surprised to see a letter from me, and still more surprised to discover its con- tents. I should not venture it, indeed, were I not fully as- sured that, after so long an association on the same spot, you will do justice to my intentions, and regard the words of an old friend with some indulgence. I look with deep interest and sympathy on all which con- cerns the state of religion among the strongest body of Chris- tians in New England ; and in common w^ith many others, I view the position which you occupy as one of immense mo- ment. It is having its effect on the religion of a generation, and, through that generation, on the future progress of the LETTER FROM BISHOP BURGESS. 195 kingdom of God in our country. Without meaning to push tlie comparison very far, I may say that no man, since the first appearance of Dr. Ciianning, appears to me to have had so much the power of becoming a kind of mediating agent between different tendencies in religion. But oh, what a task is this for the conscience ! What a responsibility before God ! How appalling the results of mistake in the performance ! How glorious the fruits of true success ! The report that you have been invited to address the grad- uating class at the Cambridge Divinity School comes from a source to which, in such matters, we are accustomed to at- tach credit. Whether you will accept the appointment is, of course, a question too weighty to be decided anywhere except where it has been submitted to all the lights of your own most conscientious judgment. But let me say that, whether you accept or reject it, the attitude in which you are placed by the very offer is one, as it strikes me, so commanding in its influence as to create the most intense solicitude for the issue. To maintain the theological character which you have held ; to speak the truth as it is written, and in the spirit of all the true, earnest faith of all ages ; and yet to satisfy, or gratify, or guide, or not offend and repel those with whom no doctrine, no authority, no revelation has been held sacred ; to associate with them without sanctioning their errors ; to commune with them by teaching them without communing with them in every way, to attempt to reconcile them to the truth without sacrificing tlie truth to them ; — this is a work from which, I am sure, many of the wisest and holiest of men would have recoiled, and in which no one could rightly en- gage, without the pnrest and highest motives, the coolest and yet most anxious deliberation, and an incessant watchfulness of prayer. Whatever 3'ou do, my dear sir, at this time or at any other, Avith your pen or otherwise, it is my hearty prayer that you may disappoint every unkind prediction, alike of the bigoted and tlie unbelieving, and ever continue to fulfil the good work of drawing together those whose hearts are really one in Christ, and of distinguishing between essential truth and 196 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. all corruptions and perversions ; so that, by your means, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit may ever be acknowl- edged and glorified. With constant respect, yours very faithfully, Geoege Buegess. On the 9th of July, he delivered, in Cambridge, his " Dis- course on the Atonement," the first of the series afterwards incorporated in a different order in "God in Christ." In the opening of the address, he speaks as follows of the cir- cumstances under which he came to them : — " You have called me to occupy, this evening, a singular, and, in the same view, difficult and responsible office ; which office, however, I most readily undertake, because I seem to have a subject and a duty appointed me also. It cannot be improper, in the circumstances, to say that when your letter came inviting me to perform this exercise, I had just emerged from a state of protracted suspense, or mental conflict, in ref- erence to what is called, theologically, the doctrine of Atone- ment ; that is, of the life and death of Jesus Christ as the Sav- iour of the world. The practical moment of Christ's work had been sufficiently plain, but the difficulty had been to bring its elements into one theologic view. The subject had for many years been hung up before me, and I had been perusing it on all sides, trying it by manifold experiments, and refusing to decide by the will what could only be cleared by light, till now, at last, the question had seemed to open itself and dis- play its reasons. And when your letter was laid upon my table, I was at that moment projecting a discourse that should embody what I dared, somewhat enthusiastically, to hope might prove a true solution of this momentous but very dif- ficult subject. Instigated by the same incautious warmth, I accepted the occasion offered, as offered not to me, but to my subject, and forthwith set apart one to the uses of the other. " If, now, a sliort interval of time and a formal preparation of the subject have somewhat sobered my confidence, if I no longer dream of the possibility that I may solve so great a question to the satisfaction of any one, I do yet cherish a TWOFOLD VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT. 197 hope that the view I may offer will lead to a reinvestigation of the whole question, and thus, at length, towards a recon- struction of our present theological affinities ; or, if this be too much, towards a reduction of our present theological an- tipathies. Or, again, if this be too much, it will at least be something if I am able to go directly down into the arena and take up, in manful earnest, the old first question over which our fathers panted in the dust of controversy, discuss- ing it anew by your permission, and without offence to your Christian hospitalities ; for it would be a public shame, even to Christianity itself, if I were to come before you on such an occasion as this, and in such a theologic relation, here to speak as one that is cautiously imprisoned within the limits of some neutral subject, neither trusting you, nor daring for myself, to hazard the mention of any point in litigation between us. I consider it, also, to be only a just compliment, in return for the ver}'^ unexampled courtesy I am accepting, to assume that your spirit is as broad as your invitation ; that you have call- ed me to speak because you desired to hear me speak my own sentiments, and not to see how well I can accommodate any favorite opinion held by yourselves." It would be impossible to preserve in an abstract the identi- ty of his peculiar twofold view of the atonement as given in this address. The difficulty of comprehension lies, not in getting the meaning of any one passage, but in grasping and blending into one the two opposing views of the subject. His subjective and objective views were to him only comple- mentary aspects of the same thought, not diverse or contra- dictory in their natures, but essentially one, and each as nec- essary to the full-orbed truth as the two pictures painted on the retina are necessary to the one rounded image in the sen- sorium of the brain. The subjective view is sufficiently sim- ple and comprehensible. To many minds it is all-sufficient, and needs no supplement. Stating it most briefly, "• Christ is a manifestation in humanity of the Eternal Life of the Father, — entering into a prison-world to set its soul-captives free ; by his incarnate charities and sufferings, to re-engage the world's love and reunite it to the Father; in one con- 198 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. densed, luminous utterance, every word of which is power, God Avas in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." In the objective or ritualistic view, which he is fond of calling the "Altar Form," he attempts to revivify the ancient and Sci'iptural types or figures of speech applied to the sacrifice and atonement of Christ, interpreting these figures not in the literal manner of orthodoxy, but by a more poetic and vital method of appropriating their inner spiritual signifi- cance. This method of interpretation is in harmony with his theory of the use of language, and is one which he applied in his treatment of all kindred subjects. On the 15th of August, he gave, as Concio ad Clerum, at Yale College, a " Discourse on the Divinity of Christ." He says, in beginning, — " It is laid npon me by the General Asso- ciation of Connecticut to discuss before you this evening the Divinity of Christ, — a duty which I most willingly undertake, because I think the time has now come when a reinvestiga- tion of the subject will be more likely than at any former pe- riod to issue in a practical settlement, or approach to settle- ment, of the questions involved." The argument on this most difficult of subjects is made as simple as possible by the method of approach. Avoiding all technicalities and speculations abo^it the subject, he is content to gaze at it as an astronomer gazes at the heavenly bodies, to learn, by looking, the profoundest wonders they can reveal. In striking contrast with these addresses was his Phi-Beta- Kappa oration on " Work and Play," given on the 24th of August, the day after Commencement at Harvard. These widely different expressions of himself, showing two so dif- ferent sides of the man, sprung, in perfect harmony and con- sistency, from one source, — his abundantly living, M'orking, playing heart. The profounder thought of the year, em- bodied in his three theological addresses, found a delicious overflow in the sparkling play of the oration. They are all the outcome of one strong inward impulse, a hidden fire which burst into flame wherever it found vent. It was one most notable characteristic of his manhood that it moved sol- idly and totally under an inspiration, and that a religious ex- WORK AND PLAY. ^ 199 perience expressed itself in him as naturally tliroiigli a spor- tive exuberance as through the fervors of devotion.* Dr. Bartol, whose genial hospitality he received, for the first time, on the occasion of these visits to Cambridge, has said of him, with reference to this time : " Dr. Bushnell, though prob- ing or plunging into the subtlest questions, was an artist, a singer, soaring on wings as he sung; and probably no oration at Cambridge had ever resounded more sweetly afar than his, in 1848, on ' Work and Play.' In his writing and speaking, was transcendent and consummate, though unconscious, art. He was cast in the rarest mould of the great Sculptor's fash- ion and design ; but his unblemished deportment was his wedding garment, and his transport of devotion his daily as- sumption into the skies." In a letter to Dr. Bartol, written in the interval between his two visits to Cambridge, in reply to an invitation to preach, he says : — " I find now that, under my feeble health and my many loads of labor, I shall be obliged to take all the time I can. I shall not leave here, therefore, till the last moment, and shall go directly to Cambridge. If I can manage, on return- * President Porter, in his address on Dr. Bushnell, given at Yale, elo- quently expresses a kindred thought : — " It was certainly true of Dr. Bushnell, that the more of a Christian he became, the more individual he was. Everything that was characteristic of him flourished in the sunshine of his faith. If Christ was his, everything was his, and, most of all, his living self His faith also increased his energy. It stimulated his imagination. It gave it form and power. Before his new life of faith, the poet in him was scarcely known to himself But after his eye w^ns opened to tliose inspiring realities that engird and penetrate this world of sense, he found himself possessed of a poet's imagery and a poet's fervor. His literary resources were enlarged a hundred-fold by the elevating power of his faith. His faith also increased his joy in nat- ure. It softened his heart towards man. It kindled and sustained his public spirit. It justified his ardent hopefulness in human jDrogress by his faith in the resources that are provided for man in Christ. It stimu- lated his inventive activity, as it warranted the hopefulness in which his sanguine nature rejoiced. It increased his sympathy with men, and therefore made him more brilliant in conversation and more genial in society," 14 200 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. ing from a little excursion, to spend a Sunday in Boston, I will certainly preach for you. I don't know but I am to be burnt out or smoked out of orthodoxy on account of my heresies ; if I do, I shall want a place somewhere, — perhaps Dr. Lowell will take a second colleague ! " I have thought over, a great many times, the very pleas- ant and refreshing talks I have had with you, on subjects so dear to us both ; and it will be one of my most valued j^leas- ures to renew these interviews hereafter, — in the great Here- after itself." The interesting events of this summer, — the hearing of the Concio ad Clemm in company with an expectant and excited audience, the brilliant day of the Harvard oration, the kind hospitalities of Dr. Bartol, a day's excursion to Nahant^ a journey to the White Mountains and Maine, and finally the hearing of the culminating address at Andover in September — were pleasures shared and valued to the full by Mrs. Bush- nell. In this third and last address, just mentioned, entitled " Dogma and Spirit," he applies practically his everywhere pervasive idea of Christ as a manifestation of God, to the subject of a true Ileviving of Religion, in distinction from sporadic manifestations of the Spirit, or revwals. His ideal is " an era of renovated faith, spreading from circle to circle through the whole Church of God on earth ; the removal of divisions, the smoothing away of asperities, the realization of love as a bond of perfectness in all the saints." Opinion, re- solving itself by the sanction of authority into Dogma, he conceives to have been most hostile to the spirit and life of Christianity. " What is loftiest and most transcendent in the character of God — his purity, goodness, beauty, and gentleness — can never be sufficiently apprehended by mere intellect. It requires a heart, a good, right-feeling heart, to receive so much of heart as God opens to us in the gospel of Christ. Indeed, the gospel is, in one view, a magnificent Avork of art, a manifestation of God, which is to find the world and move it and change it, through the medium of expression. Hence it requires for an inlet, not reason, or logic, or a scientific pow- er, so much as a right sensibility. The true and only sufiicient DR. BACON ON THE DISCOURSES. 201 interpreter of it is an oistlietic talent, viz., the talent of love, or a sensibility exalted and pnrified by love. ... In this mat- ter of head and heart, you may figure the head or understand- ing, it seems to me, as being that little plate of wood hung upon the stern of the vessel, that very small helm, by which the ship is turned about whithersoever the governor listeth. But the heart is the full, deep body of the ship itself, with its sails lifted to the breath of a divine inspiration, containing in itself the wealth, the joy, and all the adventuring passions, wants, and fears of the soul. . . . And when the great heart of faith is not parting the waves before it, and rushing on to its haven, the busy understanding is but a vain and idle thing, swinging round and round with an addled motion, whose ac- tions and reactions are equal, and which, therefore, profit nothing. " Oh, what momentum, and power, and grandeur will Chris- tianity reveal when a true Pauline devotion to God is kindled in the whole Church, when the opinions of the head cease to be supreme, when the petty tyranny of formulas and dogmas falls back, dethroned, and the full, living heart of the Church is offered, without subtraction, to the occupancy of Christ and the power of his cross !" Of these Discourses the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon says : — "In 1848, it became the duty of the Association of Pastors, in which Dr. Bushnell was a member, to nominate one from among themselves as preacher of the Concio ad CUrum, at the annual Commencement in New Haven. The General Association, representing the entire body of the Congregational clergy in Connecticut, had previously designated the subject, ' the Divinity of Christ.' I think I may say that Dr. Bush- nell was appointed to that service, not only because of his recognized ability, but no less because of the certainty that he would readily ac- cept so fair an opportunity of declaring his judgment on that cardinal question between the Evangelical system and the Unitarian. It was, therefore, with much more than ordinary interest that a large assemljly of clergy and intelligent laity listened to the Concio in 1848. Those who had most admired and honored the preacher, rejoiced to hear from Iiim so powerful an argument for the doctrine of ' God manifest in the flesh.' Their confidence in him was strengthened. At, the same time, the char- acteristic independence of his thinking on that high theme, and his fear- less rejection of ancient phraseology, more metaphysical than Scriptural, 202 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. were sufficiently startling. Nobody who heard that sermon could say that the preacher was a Unitarian. Yet there was room to ask : Is he orthodox ? Is he not chargeable with dangerous tendencies ? Will he not, after all, become a Unitarian ? Probably none were conscious of asking : Can we not drive him into the Unitarian ranks ? If the first and second discourses were startling to many a good man, whose mind could move only in well-worn grooves of thought, much more was the third. The hearers, and those to whom the report came of what was heard, had expected something new and strange,— perhaps something ominous of ecclesiastical disturbance ; and they were not disappointed " By this time it had become evident that Dr. Bushnell was not a Uni- tarian. But what was he, and what was to be done with him ? Here was a strong man, driving the ploughshare deep into the subsoil of theology ; and who could tell what would spring up in such furrows ? Here was a man, reverent indeed towards God, but with little regard for human authority, analyzing old formulas of doctrine, ' searching what and what manner ' of revelation the Spirit of Christ had signified in the Scriptures, and ' with fear of change perplexing ' doctors of divinity. Could he be refuted ? Certainly. Nothing was easier than to refute him by the ordinary methods of theological controversy. Make him responsible for all possible inferences from his language, call him by hard names fished up out of the chaos of post-Nicene and ante-Nicene controversies, prove him guilty of dangerous complicity with Monothe- lite, Monophysite, Patripassian, and Sabellian errors ; and would not the refutation be complete ?" In speaking of these addresses, our aim lias been, thus far, not to give their contents, but rather to iHustrate their ani- mating spirit, and show the rehation they bore to the inner history of the year. Having thus considered them historical- ly, in the order in which they were delivered, it now remains to look upon them as consolidated in one book, " God in Christ," published the following winter. Having changed their order, placing first that on the " Divinity of Christ," de- livered at New Haven ; second, the Cambridge address on the "Atonement ;" and, third, that given at Andover, — he prefaced the whole, not only by an explanatory " Introduction," but by a " Dissertation on Language," which he considered the key to his line of thought throughout the book, and essential to a fair understanding of it ; " for," he says, " if these views of language have been historically introductory to me, it is hardly possible that others will enter fully into my positions DISSERTATION ON LANGUAGE. 203 without any introduction at all." And these views are equal- ly necessary to a vital understanding of all his future writ- ings, for upon this foundation the whole structure was reared ; or, in another sense, they form the key-stone, without which the arch would lack coherence and solidity. Here^ we repeat with emphasis, is the key to Horace Sushnell, to the whole scheme of his thought, to that peculiar manner of expression which marked his individuality,— in a word, to the man. We shall therefore quote freely from the Dissertation, not attempting to show the whole framework of its argument, but simply to give its main statements : — "We find, then, that every language contains two distinct departments : the physical department, — that which provides names for things; and the intellectual department, — that which provides names for thought and spirit. In the former, names are simple representatives of things, which even the animals may learn. In the latter, the names of things are used as representatives of thought, and cannot, therefore, be learn- ed save by beings of intelligence — {intus lego) — that is, beings who can read the inner sense, or receive the inner contents of words ; beings in whom the Logos of the creation finds a correspondent logos, or reason, to receive and employ the types it offers in their true power. ... In this view, which it is not rash to believe will some time be fully established, the outer world is seen to be a vast menstruum of thought or intelli- gence. There is a logos in the forms of things, by which they are pre- pared to serve as types or images of what is inmost in our souls ; and then there is a logos of construction in the relations of space, the posi- tion, qualities, connections, and predicates of things, by which they are framed into grammar. In one word, the outer world, which envelops our being, is itself language, the power of all language. ' Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge; there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard, — tlieir line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.' " And if the outer world is the vast dictionary and grammar of thought we speak of, then it is also itself an organ, throughout, of Intelligence. Whose intelligence ? By this question wx are set directly confronting God, the universal Author, no more to hunt for him by curious argu- ments and subtle deductions, if happily we may find him ; but he stands expressed everywhere, so that, turn whichsoever way we please, we behold the outlooking of his intelligence. . . . " We pass now to the application of these views of language, or the power they are entitled to have, in matters of moral and religious inquiry, and especially in Christian theology. . . . 204 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. " Words of tliouglit and spirit are possible in language, only in virtue of the fact that there are forms j^rovided in the world of sense, ■which are cognate to the mind, and fitted, bj' reason of some hidden analog}', to represent or express its interior sentiments and thoughts. ... It fol- lows that, as physical terms are never exact, being only names of genera, much less have we any terms in the spiritual department of language that are exact representatives of thought. . . . " Words of thought or sjiirit are not only inexact in their significance, never measuring the truth or giving its precise equivalent, but they al- ways affirm something which is false, or contrary to the truth intended. They impute /o/vh to that which is really out of form. They are related to the truth only as form to spirit, — earthen vessels in which the truth is borne, yet always offering their mere pottery as being the truth it- self. . . . "A veiy great share of our theological questions, or disputes, originate in the incapacity of the parties to separate truths from their forms, or to see how the same essential truth may clothe itself under forms that are repugnant. . . . " Since all words but such as relate to necessary truths are inexact representations of thought, mere types or analogies, or, where the types are lost beyond recovery, only proximate expressions of the thoughts named, it follows that language will be ever trying to mend its own de- ficiencies by multiplying its forms of representation. As, too, the words made use of generally carry something false with them, as well as some- thing true, associating form with the truths re2>resented, when really there is no form, it will also be necessary, on this account, to multiply words or figures, and thus to present the subject on opposite sides or many sides. Thus, as form battles form, and one form neutralizes an- other, all the insufficiencies of words are filled out, the contrarieties liq- uidated, and the mind settles into a full and just apprehension of the pure spiritual truth. Accordingly, we never come so near to a truly well-rounded view of any truth as when it is offered paradoxically; that is, under contradictions ; that is, under two or more dictions, which, taken as dictions, are contrary one to the other. "... Precisely here, too, I suppose, we come upon what is really the true conception of the Incarnation and the Trinity. These great Chris- tian mysteries or paradoxes come to pass under the same conditions or laws which j^ertain to language. All words are, in fact, only incarna- tions, or insensings of thought. If we investigate the relations of their forms to the truths signified, we have the same mystery before us; if we set the diff'erent but related forms in comparison, we have the same as- pect of repugnance or inconsistency. And then we have only to use the repugnant forms as vehicles of inwe thought, dismissing the contradic- tory matter of the forms; and both words and the Word are understood without distraction, — all by the same process. DISSERTATION ON LANGUAGE. 205 ..." There is no book in the world that contains so many repug- nances, or antagonistic forms of assertion, as the Bible. Therefore, if any man please to play off his constructive logic upon it, he can easily show it up as the absurdest book in the world. But whosoever wants, on the other hand, really to behold and receive all truth, and would have the truth-world overhang him as an empyrean of stars, complex, multitudi- nous, striving antagonistically, yet comprehended, height above height, and deep under deep, in a boundless score of harmony, — what man so- ever, content with no small rote of logic and catechism, reaches with true hunger after this, and will offer himself to the many-sided forms of the Scripture Avith a perfectly ingenuous and receptive spirit, — he shall find his nature flooded with senses, vastnesses, and powers of truth such as it is even greatness to feel. . . . " How, then, are we to receive it and come into its truth ? Only in the comprehensive manner just now suggested; not by desti'oying the re- pugnances, but by allowing them to stand, offering our mind to their im- pressions, and allowing it to gravitate inwardly towards that whole of truth in which they coalesce. And when w^e are in that whole, we shall have no dozen propositions of our own in which to give it forth; neither will it be a whole which we can set before the world, standing on one leg, in a perfectly definite shape, clear of all mystery ; but it will be such a whole as requires a whole universe of rite, symbol, incarnation, historic breathings, and poetic fires to give it expression, — in a word, just what it now has. . . . " The views of language and interpretation I have here offered suggest the very great difficulty, if not impossibility, of mental science and relig- ious dogmatism. In all such uses or attempted uses, the effort is to make language answer a purpose that is against its nature. Tiie ' winged words ' are required to serve as beasts of burden ; or, what is no better, to forget their poetic life as messengers of the air, and stand still, fixed upon the ground, as wooden statues of truths. Which, if they seem to do ; if, to comfort our studies of dogma, they assume the inert faces we desire, and suffer us to arrange the fixed attitudes of their bodies, yet, as little Memnons touched and made vocal by the light, they will be dis- coursing still of the free empyrean, disturbing and scattering by their voices all the exact meanings we had thought to hold them to in the nice corporeal order of our science. ... " What is the Christian truth ? Pre-eminently, and principally, it is the expression of God, — coming into expression through histories and rites, through an incarnation, and through language, — in one syllable, by the Word. The endeavor is, by means of expression and under the laws of expression, to set forth God, — his providence and his government, and, what is more and higher than all, God's own feeling, his truth, love, jus- tice, compassion. " It accords, also, with this, that, while natural science is advancing 206 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. with so great rapidity and certainty of movement, the advances of men- tal science are so irregular and obscure, and are wrought out by a pro- cess so conflicting and tortuous. There is, however, one hope for mental and religious truth, and their final settlement, which I confess I see but dimly, and can but faintly express or indicate. It is, that physical sci- ence, leading the way, setting outward things in their true proportions, opening up their true contents, revealing their genesis and final causes and laws, and weaving all into the unity of a real universe, will so per- fect our knowledges and conceptions of them, that we can use them in the second department of language with more exactness ; . . . for, un- doubtedly, the whole universe of nature is a perfect analogon of the whole universe of thought or spirit. Therefore, as nature becomes truly a universe only through science revealing its universal laws, the true uni- verse of thought and spirit cannot sooner be conceived. It would be easy to show, in this connection, the immense force already exerted over the empire of spiritual truth by astronomy, chemistry, geology, the reve- lations of light and electricity, and especially of the mysterious and plas- tic workings of life in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. We are ac- customed to say that this is not the same world to live in that it was fifty years ago. Just as true is it that it is not the same world to think in that it then was." In the course of some additional remarks upon the uses of language, he says, doubtless with reference to the charges of obscurity made against his writings : — " Shall I dare go further ? Shall I say that of all the ' clear ' writers I have ever met with, — those, I mean, who are praised by the multitude for their transparency, — I have never yet found one who was able to send me forward an inch, or one that was really true, save in a certain superfi- cial or pedagogical sense, as being an accurate distributor of that which is known. The roots of the known are always in the unknown ; and if a man will never show the root of anything, if he will treat of the known as separate from the unknown, and as having a complete knowledge of it, which he has not,— pretending still to be an investigator, and to exert an obstetric force, when he is only handling over old knowledge and impres- sions,—he may easily enough be clear. Nothing, in fact, is easier, if one is either able to be shallow or willing to be false. He is clear because he stands out before the infinite and the unknown ; separate, bounded- oflf [de-finite], so that you see the whole compass of his head, just so many inches in diameter. But the writer who is to help us on, by some real advance or higher revelation, will, for that reason, be less compre- hensible, and offer more things hard to be understood. He will be, as it were, a face, setting out from a background of mystery ; a symbolism, through which the infinite and the unknown are looking out upon us, EFFECT OF THESE VIEWS UPON IIIS WRITTEN STYLE. 207 and, by kind significances, tempting us to struggle into that holy but dark profound which they are opening. Of course, we are not to make a merit of obscurity ; for notliing is more to be admired than the won- drous art by which some men are able to propitiate and assist the gener- ative understanding of others, so as to draw them readily into higher realizations of truth. But there is a limit, we must acknowledge, even to this highest power of genius; it cannot quite create a soul under the ribs of death. ... " In this matter of trinity and atonement, though I am as far as possi- ble from all mere phantasm or allegory, adhering strictly to the Scripture representations, I seem to encounter the same difficulty with poor Bun- yan when he consults his friends in regard to the publication of his ' Pil- grim.' Many prophesy that his book will not 'stand when soundly tried ' — that is, I suppose, when tried by the dialectic methods of specu- lative theology — they are specially scandalized by the light imaginative air of his book, and tell him that his words 'want solidness' — 'meta- phors make us blind.' But he rallies courage to say, and his reply is even more to the point for me than for him : — " 'But must I needs want solidness, because By metaphors I speak ? Were not God's laws, His gospel laws, iu olden time, licld fortli By Shadows, Types, and Metaphors?' " And here he foresaw truly the fate of his book. The judg- ment of the time upon " God in Christ " was similar to that of Bunyan's friends upon the Pilgrim. Nor have more re- cent times, perhaps, reversed the verdict as regards the special types and metaphors under which his thought took shape. IS^one the less did the book open a new avenue of approach to spiritual truth, which has never again been closed. Our study of this subject is not complete without some ref- erence to the effect of his views of language upon his writ- ten style. His friend Dr. William W. Patton, then a resident of Hartford, gives this interesting account of a conversation with him, at the time when he w\as under trial for the theo- logical opinions of the book, " God in Christ :" — " Dr. Bushnell and myself were riding together to a meeting of the Hartford Central Association, and the conversation turned on theological discussions. ' Why is it,' said I, ' that you complain that you are so gen- erally misunderstood ? Where you are criticised, you say that the critics misapprehend your positions ; and they reply that you ought to express yourself more clearly. Why can you not do so ?' His answer was sub- 208 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. stantially this: 'It is because of the diflfereut views which they and I take of the human soul and of the relation of language to spiritual truth. They succeed easily in so expressing their ideas as to be understood by their readers; but it is because they deal with subjects mechanically, and not according to nature. There, for instance, is Dr. T , my custom- ary assailant. He writes about the human spirit as if it were a machine under the laws of mechanics; and, of course, what he says is perfectly intelligible, like any other treatise on matter ; only wdiat he says is not true ! But I conceive of the soul in its living nature ; as free, and intelli- gent, and sensitive ; as under vital and not mechanical laws. Language, too, for tliat reason, is not so much descriptive as suggestive, being figu- rative throughout, even w'here it deals with spiritual truth. Therefore, an experience is needed to interpret words. Thus, when I was in college I once undertook to read Coleridge's " Aids to Reflection." But the au- thor seemed foggy and unintelligible, and I closed the book, and put it upon my book-shelves, where it remained a long time. Meanwhile, my mind went on thinking and maturing ; and one day, my eye falling on the book, I took it down and began to read, and, behold, all was lucid and instructive ! And so it will be some time with my writings. Men will read them, and give me credit for perspicuity instead of vagueness and uncertainty. That will be when they have truer conceptions of the soul and of language.' " Such is the substance of remarks which deejily impressed me at the time, a,s giving his own point of view of himself and of his critics," John T. Sewall, Professor of Homiletics in Bangor Theo- logical Seminary, published, a year or two ago, the following letter from Dr. Bushnell, written in answer to the question, whether certain marked traits in his style were the result of any peculiar method of training : — "I was brought up in a country family, ignorant of any but country society, where cultivated language in conversa- tion was unknown. I entered college late, — at twenty-one years of age, when the vernacular type of language is cast, and will not afterwards commonly be much altered. I came to writing with no stock of speech but this. I had no lan- guage, and if I chanced to have an idea, nothing came to give it expression. The problem was, in fact, from that point on- ward, how to get a language, and where. If 1 had any mod- el, it was Paley ; though I took him rather as encouragement than as a model. I could see a certain beauty in his plain go- afoot style ; and though it showed nothing very remarkable ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE AND STYLE. 209 to copy, I tlioiight I miglit hope, with my poor vernacular outfit, to make some progress towards a standard thus pitched for pedestrian attainment. My style of thinking was pitched, of course, in the same key. " By-and-by it fell to me to begin the reading of Coleridge. For a whole half year I was buried under liis 'Aids to Reflec- tion,' and trying vainly to look up through. I was quite sure that I saw a star glimmer, but I could not quite see the stars. My habit was only landscape before ; but now I saw enough to convince me of a whole other world somewhere overhead, a range of realities in higher tier, that I must climb after, and, if possible, apprehend. Shortly after, a very strong lift in my religious experience came as a waft upon my inspirations, to apprise me more distinctly of their existence, and of the two-M^orld range that belonged to me. My powers seemed to me more than doubled ; and where was the language to serve me in such higher thoughts as I might have? In this mood or exigency, I discovered how language built on physical im- ages is itself two stories high, and is, in fact, an outfit for a double range of uses. In one it is literal, naming so many roots, or facts of form ; in the other it is figure, figure on fig- ure, clean beyond the dictionaries, for whatever it can proper- ly signify. Have I not as good right to God's images as any- body else ever had before me ? " AVriting became, in this manner, to a considerable extent, the making of language, and not a going to the dictionaries. I have dared sometimes to put myself out on my liberty. Finding the air fall of wings about me, buoyant all and free, I have let them come under and lift. The second, third, and thirtieth senses of words — all but the physical first sense — be- long to the empyrean, and are given, as we see in the proph- ets, to be inspired by. Of course they must be genuinely used — in their nature, and not contrary to it. We learn to embark on them as we do when we go to sea ; and when the breeze of inspiration comes, we glide. Commonly there will be a certain rhythm in the motion, as there is in waves, and as we hear in ^olian chords. "In these hastily described methods it will be seen as by 210 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. suo:o;estion how tins kind of culture may proceed. And to this I add : " 1. Kever take a model to be copied. When that is be- ing done, no great work begins ; the fire is punky, and only smokes. " 2. Never try to create a fine style, or say things beauti- fully. Go to the tailor's for all the appearings. But if one can have great thoughts, let these burst the shells of words, if they must, to get expression. And if they are less rhythmic when expressed than is quite satisfactory, mere thought, mere head-work, will, of course, have its triartgulations, and ought to have. Add now great inspirations, great movings of sen- timent, and these, just so long as the gale lasts, will set every- thing gliding and flowing, whether to order or not. But let no one think to be gliding always. A good prose motion has some thumping in it." LETTERS. 211 CHAPTER XI. 1848-1850. LETTERS TO DR. BARTOL.— PUBLICATION OF "GOD IN CHRIST." —REVIEWS.— LETTERS.— C. C, OR CRITICUS CRITICORUM.— DE- FENCE BEFORE THE HARTFORD CENTRAL ASSOCIATION.— LETTERS AGAIN. To Dr. Bartol. Hartford, October 11, 1848. My dear Feiend, — I thank yon for your very kind letter. It is refreshing to know somebody that dare let out his heart; for I begin to iind that I am looked upon hereabouts as a mortally dangerous person. I think I have never seemed to be quite so much isolated as now ; not that I am really and finally cast off, but every man seems to say, and almost every one actually says, "When is the book coming out?" that being the date, as it would seem, when they hope to be allowed to restore their suspended confidence, if not to loosen their suspended retribution. Instigated in this way, you are right in supposing that I am busy on my book. I heartily wish it were out; but it is not, and I can hardly guess ^yhen it will be. I think I understand how much is depending on it, and, of course, what my responsibilities are. Still, though it is the " crisis of my life," as you intimate, I suffer no anx- iety whatever as to the result. Kot because it may not, in one view, be important to me, but because I- am willing to trust myself, and can do it calmly, to God and the conscious honesty of my convictions. I have a certain feeling, too, I will not deny, that if what I am about to say should be stifled and killed by an over-hasty judgment, it will yet rise again the third day. This feeling I have, not in exultation, it seems to me, not so much in the shape of defiance, as in 212 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. the shape of consolation, a soft whisper that lingers round me in mj studies, to hold me firm, and smooth me into an even, uncaring spirit. Still, the best of all attitudes, I know, is this — Let me do the right, and let God take care of me. I want to be in no better hands. I have been reading, since I saw jou, what I had not read before, Neander's "Planting and Training of the Churches." I recollect a conversation we had, — I think it was the evening Dr. Walker was with us, — about Paul, etc. I wish you would read the part which gives the theology of the apostles. I have done so with profoundest interest. He seems to hold a subjective and objective view of Christ, closely resembled to that which I have tried to advance. . . . To the Same. Hartford, January 8, 1849. My deae Friend, — I suppose you will have guessed why I have delayed answering your kind note so long. If not, I have only to say that I have been hunted and chased by my printers at such a rate that I have found no time till now to breathe. Your beautiful present* is made to a child only five years old, and yet unable to read. I read her the note, and told her the book was hers, to be kept till she was old enough to value it. If you could have seen her little eyes filled with tears, you would not need to be told of her thanks. My book is now in the hands of the printers, and I expect to see the last of the proof-sheets to-morrow. It will be out in a week or ten days. I shall order a copy delivered to you in the first bundle sent to Boston. You say with emphasis, — " God in Christ^'' — in your letter. I had just then fixed on this as the title to my book. My hope is not that it will convert anybody to me or my ways, but, what is dearer to me by far and more welcome, — that it wnll start up inquiries of a different type, and lead to thoughts of a different char- acter from those which have occupied the field of Kew Eng- land theology, and so to revisions, recastings, new affinities, * A copy of " Robinson Crusoe." LETTERS. 213 more faith and less dogma, and, above all, to a more cath- olic and fraternal spirit. I expect to be set npon all round the circle; and yet I have a confidence that a class of men who have heart enough to go into the aesthetic side of re- ligion, and eyes to see something besides prepositional wis- dom, will admit that I have some truth in my representations. These, I think, will even wonder a little at the disturbance I have made by these expositions. The Discourses are all enlarged and varied ad libitum, though not modified in sentiment, except that the one at An- dover is enlarged in the subject. I have prefixed a Disser- tation on Language, that I hope will be read. One thing will be clear to many, — that I am a good deal more for a Theos than for a theology. With a heart full of refreshing Christian remembrances, I am your brother, H. BUSHNELL. To the Same. Hartford, February 13, 1849. My dear Friend and Brother, — I send you herewith the long forth-coming book. That you will find some interest in it I have no doubt, if it is only for my sake. I only wish it were more exactly what it should be. I have spoken some- what freely of the Unitarians here and there, as I have of the orthodox. I hope they will not be any more angry with me than I expect the orthodox to be. There are a few misprints in the book, in spite of all my care to avoid them. In the first half, too, of the Andover discourse, there are some mud- dy sentences, which represent the muddy, dyspeptic state I was in, — exhausted by the chase the printers gave me, and confused by the extra demand just then made to supply two burnt districts of copy, where the printer had let a bundle of copy slide down into his lamp. I shall try to mend a few deformities of this kind in my next edition. Until then, keep this ; and when I send you a better, you can give it away, for I want you to have, at any rate, a lamb that is without blem- ish, or, if not a lamb, a calf. I rejoice not a little in spirit to see the signs that are be- 21i LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. ginning to be unfolded of a new spiritual relation between our divided families. I see tokens of a mitigation of repug- nance, and a more indulgent and fraternal charity, some- times in quarters, too, where I should not look for it. I re- joice, too, in the fact that the Unitarian side in Boston are evincing just now signs of spiritual life that rebuke the dul- ness of orthodoxy. You remember, perhaps, that I exj)ressed a conviction that the Unitarian side would ultimately take the lead of orthodoxy in spiritual vivacity and real piety of character. I am more and more confident of this, and noth- ing but this is wanted to silence all controversy and comj)el a fraternal state. Unitarians, however, will need, in order to this, to come off their moralistic, self-culturing method, cease to think of a character developed outwardly from their own centre, and pass over by faith to live in God, which only is religion or Christianity. It is to be what God in Christ and God in the Spirit w^ill make us, and what we cannot be in ourselves. Give my love to Mrs. B. and the dear daughter. Your brother in Christ, 11. Busunell. From a friend, who was thoroughly conversant with the whole history of the controversy over the book, we have the following statement of the facts consequent upon its pub- lication : — "At the time of the publication of 'God in Christ,' the atmosphere was sensitively tremulous with suspicions in respect to the orthodoxy of the author, a state of things of which he himself was not ignorant. On the issue of the book from the press in February, 1849, a few of the re- ligious newspapers and magazines spoke of it tolerantly, one or two per- haps kindly, but the larger number with decided expressions of dissent and denunciation. The May number of the Neio Englander for that year contained a notice of ' God in Clirist ' from the pen of Dr. Leonard Bacon, kindly in tone, and marked by discrimination and fairness in the state- ment of its teachings. Two ministers residing in Hartford, afterwards abundantly friendly to Dr. Bushuell, published lengthy reviews, more or less dissenting from its statements of truth. " But these criticisms, and others such as these, were the milk of hu- man kindness itself, compared with the language employed by another class of writers. No sooner did the book see the light than it became apparent that the theological authorities were determined to strangle THEOLOGICAL REVIEWERS. 215 the infant in its very cradle. It was extensively believed, and puljlicly charo-ed at the time, that the fierce and systematic onset which was made upon the author and his new work was the result of a concerted plan, originating in Hartford and its vicinity. As a part of this plan, the leading theological centres were to furnish each a champion to assist in crushing the man, who, though he had denied none of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, had ventured to express his ftiith in them under formulas and philosophic explanations somewhat different from those which were assumed to be cauonically settled for all time. " The first of these criticisms came from the Divinity School at New Haven. Under the caption, ' What does Dr. Bushnell mean V three arti- cles, signed ' Omicrou,' appeared in successive numbers of the iVe?o YorJc Emngellst. On their completion, these were gathered into a pamphlet of twenty-eight pages and extensively circulated. In the course of a week or two, Princeton gave her weighty verdict, in an article of some forty pages, in the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Bevieic. This, thougli the most courteous and discriminating of all the reviews proceeding from centres of theologic authority, yet failed in many respects to rejire- sent fairly the teachings of the book, and pronounced upon its alleged errors with judicial severity. The next assault was made by the Chris- tian Ohservator-)/, a new religious monthly published in Boston, which devoted sixty pages of its issue for June to a criticism of ' God in Christ.' The tone of this review was bitter and severe to a degree almost un- equalled in the history of modern controversial theology. About the same time, from Bangor Theological Seminary emanated a volume of one hundred and eighteen pages, entitled ' Review of Dr. Bushnell's God in Christ ;' a book characterized by the calm and positively assured con- viction that a well-settled theologic system is the one touchstone of all truth, and that the regions beyond are dangerous ground, not worth the exploring. The Theological Seminary at East Windsor furnished no formal review, but performed its full share in the attempted enterprise of extinguishing the new heresy by keeping up a running fire against it in the columns of the Religious Herald. " From this detailed account it is seen that thunder-bolts of condem- nation were aimed at the devoted liead of Horace Bushnell from every quarter of the theological firmament, and in quantity there were enough of them to have demolished a full score of heretics. But the result was a marked failure, for the simple reason that it was man's thunder and not God's. Many honest-minded Christian people were, it is true, thrown off their balance, and, in the excitement of the hour, were led to unite in the outcry, ' Away with him !' And even some of his personal friends, though holding fast their confidence in his doctrinal integrity, began to entertain apprehensions lest, as a consequence of the clamor, he might lose his good standing in the orthodox ministry. The critical reviews, of which we have been speaking, unitedly sustained the position of those 15 216 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. who were seeking to impair Dr. BusliueU's ecclesiastical standing, and gave them, for a brief time, a greatly assured boldness. Had not the leading authorities adjudged his yiews to be a radical departure from orthodoxy ? How, then, could the public mind question the justice of a decision pronounced by so candid and competent a court ? " But God was in the storm, prei)aring and directing the agencies which were to bring about in the coming future a restoration of confidence; and, as the chief element in this progress, he kept the object of all this condemnation in a spirit of serene and unperturbed trust. The book was written under a sense of supreme loyalty to the truth, and sent forth upon its public mission in obedience to the convictions of duty, which, in the view of the author, were only another name for the voice of God. So far as God was in it, God would take care of it. In this state of mind there was to be no controversy with men ; for, to go down into the arena of theological conflict, was it not to contradict the design with which the work had been undertaken ? The wisdom of this course was fully vindicated ; for the final result of it was, that ojoponents, find- ing no one to fight back, became weary witli beating the air, and were obliged to retire from the battle-field without a single trophy. And, further, there can be very little doubt that Dr. Bushnell's calm and un- retaliating Christian temper, during these intensely trying times, saved the churches from an unhappy disruption." Dr. Buslinell was, in fact, prepared for this trial, knowing that it must come, and having deliberately made up his mind how to meet it. He was faithful to the purpose declared in the Introduction to his book of never replying to the assaults made upon him. He did, it is true, explain his positions to the amount of another volume, tliat he miglit, if possible, make himself better understood. He also displayed- address and legal ability when he checkmated, on several important occasions, the ecclesiastical moves of his adversaries ; but he never descended for a moment into wrangling over disputed points, in a word, into controversy. His published compact with himself was this : — " Some persons anticipate, I perceive, in the publication of these Dis- courses, the opening of another great religious controversy. There may be such a controversy, but I really do not see whence it is to come ; foi-, as regards myself, I am quite resolved that I will be drawn to no reply, unless there is produced against me some argument of so great force that I feel myself required, out of simple duty to the truth, either to sur- render or to make important modifications in the views I have advanced. I anticipate, of course, no such necessity, though I do anticipate that ar- SILENCE TO BE HIS STRONGHOLD. 217 gnmcnts and reviews will be advanced such as will show off my absurd- ities in a very glaring light, and such as many persons of acknowledged character will accept with applause as conclusive, or even explosive refu- tations. Therefore, I advertise it beforehand, to prevent a misconstruction of my silence, that I am silenced now, on the publication of my volume. It has been a question whether my duty to the truth would suffer the taking of this ground ; but I have come to the opinion that replications arc generally of little use, and that, though the truth may be somewhat hindered or retarded by adverse criticism, it will yet break through at last, unassisted, and have its triumph. Furthermore, the truths here ut- tered are not mine. They live in their own majesty. Ought I not, there- fore, to believe that, going forth in silence, having time on their side, and God in company, they will open their way, even the more securely, the less of human bustle and tumult is made in their behalf? This it is my happiness to think. Therefore I drop them into the world, leaving them to care for themselves, and assert their own power." To Dr. Bartol. Hartford, March 20, 1849. My deak Friend, — I thank you most heartily for your very kind letter, and also for the very indulgent and, I fear, partial judgment you are able to give my book. There is no man living, of my friends, whose good opinion I should value more. How refreshing it is that w^e are able to coalesce in so many points of opinion ; and in matters that belong to the life of religion, to coalesce so perfectly ! Your letter shows me two things ; first, that we are wider apart than I supposed we were ; and, secondly, that we are closer together ; for, though we meet in so many points of opinion, it is yet only in points ; and still I see that in the inmost life of faith itself, back of form, back, so to speak, of all points, we are one. And in this very peculiar relationship discovered between us, I confess that I have so great pleasure that I am tempted almost to cherish and keejj alive our disagreements, that they may always be the same evidence as now, that the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power. And yet it is so imj)or- tant, just now, that I should be understood, that I am tempted, on that account, to run over some of the points in your let- ter, just enough to let you hear the echo to your own voice. The general stricture you pass on my " too excessive com- 218 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. plexity," etc., is one that I pass on myself. It holds, I sus- pect, not of my writings generally, but more of the last two discourses, where, being set between cross-fires to be raked on both sides, I was too anxious, perhaps, to meet every thought of everybody. I felt this especially in regard to the discourse on the atonement. What you say regarding the untheologic character of my book, or its value as a " suggestive " instru- ment principally, exactly meets my feeling. It is what I wish to hear ; for it is my very theory, you know, that noth- ing more is possible in the way of theology than to act sug- gestively. I have no doubt that some of the orthodox will say, — it has been said to me privately, as you hint, — that, protesting against logic, I have used it, and that, easting out dogmas, I have done it only to set up a dogma of my own. But it will be observed that I have used logic principally as a negative and distinctive instrument, and as ad hominem to the disciples of logic. And as to dogma, the point to which I have brought everything is this, and this, in my view, includes all I have done, viz., that God, in the matter of trinity and atonement, is seen to approach us or come into knowledge, not under terms of logic and notionally, but un- der the laws of expression. To this, trinity is brought down ; to this, atonement. They meet us poetically, sesthetically, to pour their contents into us through feeling and imagination ; to deposit their contents, not in our reason but in our faith, — by faith to be experimented or known experimentally. The trinity is the algebraic formula of experience. The terms are factors of feeling and experience, — a.b.c.=a?. If any one chooses to call my doctrine dogma, and will call every right instrument of suggestion, or expression, even the last cry of Jesus, dogma, I have no objection. It. is said, you know, that when there is an idiot child in a family it is seen to be more cherished than any other. Per- haps it is on this principle that I think the discourse least approved by you to be really the most complete in the argu- ment, and the most conclusive in the result, of the three. I wish I had time or opportunity to sit down with you and talk over the points in issue. LETTERS. 219 Marvellous times are these in which we live! The Pope flies, I hope not to return ; and, at the same time, it seems to me that a truer, more real, more Christian and holier Catho- licity is breathing softly into the world from God. Only let us have our part in this healing breath ; let it sweep, even as a gale of life, through our hearts, and fan away everything but truth and love within us. Yours in Christ Jesus, Horace Bushnell. To the Same. Hartford, April 11, 1849. My deae Friend, — jSTo apology was necessary for not go- ing into an argument with me over my long, prosy letter. I did not mean to get up a paper quarrel. I only felt anxious to have you get hold of me ; and as you had given me some points of contact, I thought I could gain something by just touching them. I thank you for the only too undeserved compliment of your note in the Impdrer, but more for the very beautiful, and in many points convincing, article you sent me in the Ex- aminer. There are passages in that article which I should like mightily to have written, and the whole spirit of it is such as to kindle a true Christian lire in my heart. If I must choose between it and the common view of orthodoxy, I should not long hesitate. And yet there is a want in it, a vital defect of something. My heart cries. More, more ! It leaves God too far ofE, in- terposing, between me and God, a creature -being, whom I want to worship more than him, and who really deserves my worship more than he ; for surely it was more in him to die for me, a deeper love, than it was for the Father simply to let him. Just here, I perceive, is going to be" the difficulty as regards that " reorganization " of which you speak. The tendency of German speculations and reactions, you have seen (as in Ullman-s article on the "Essence of Christianity"), is towards the "Incarnation," the union of the divine and the human in the person of Jesus, understanding that union in its hio'hest sense. I am confident that Unitarianism and or- 220 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. thodoxy can never meet in any other point than this ; partly, because the miraculous conception of Jesus, regarding him as a creature-being already in esse, is too awkward, too virtu- ally impossible, for belief; more, because the religious want we have on our side is too vast to be answered by any means of so slender a quality. Nay, your human or creature Saviour is, in one view, an offence to us, because it justifies that frigid dictum of the logical judgment wiiicli asserts that God is too far oflt", too essentially incommunicable, to suffer a real union with humanity. I read your eloquent article, thrilled and melted by its presentations, offended or shocked by nothing, as I am by some of our orthodox teachings, scarcely dissent- ing anywhere, feeling that God's character is everywhere justified, and that I must offer myself to communion in the true brotherhood of the faith. And yet, when I had come to the end, said Amen to almost everything and closed the book, I w^as still obliged to say. Well, this is not enough ; it does not fill me; my Saviour is more, closer, vaster, — God himself enshrined in this world-history with me to sanctify both it and me, and be in it and me, the fulness of him that fiUeth all. It is only part of the same general defect, that you seem to be more shy of supernaturalism than I could wish, in the view you take of sacrifices, and especially in your view of imrdon; for I hope it will some time or other be made to appear that there is a great deal more of super- naturalism in the management of this world than even or- thodoxy has begun to suspect, — even a systematic, world- ruling, nature-redeeming supernaturalism ; therefore, such as may aspire to separate sins (in pardon) from the damnation of mere nature, and the causative hell that nature contains or adds as a destiny to sin. I want exceedingly, my dear brother, to sit down with you and talk over these great themes, so dear to us both. I hope we shall ere long have that privilege. But it is a matter of unspeakable comfort to me, just now, that God is at the helm, preparing his own issues, and that if the disciples of his truth stammer in their words and see only confusedly, he himself perfectly understands what LETTERS. 221 the measure of his gospel is, and where the lines are to be fixed. . . . To the Rev. Henry Goodwin. Hartford, April 13, 1849. My dear FiiiEND, — I have read jour article with the great- est delight, with true thanksgiving, I will say, to God, that there is any one who is prepared, just now, to stand forth and say the right thing for his truth. I count much upon you for the future, and I w^ish you to feel that God has a work for you to do. If it were not for you, I should feel myself to be much alone. I should like to have you consider whether it is not for you, some months hence, after my bulls of Bashan have over- whelmed me by their combined rush, to come out in a book, or something of that kind, on Theological Method. Nothing is wanted now so much. Suppose you enter on the subject now. Read Hampden's "Bampton Lectures," and Morell's "Philosophy of Religion," just out; collect your illustrations and facts. Digest all Church history, — a small job ! Have you read the long i-eview in The Princeton f You have seen me a pantheist in The Evangelist. Why not an atheist as well, with a special incarnation and a plan of super- natural redemption ? This would enlighten the Germans ! Give my regards to Professor and Mrs. Park, with the hope that he will not be poisoned thereby. I have many thoughts about you, such as that God will call you to some work ere long that is exactly adapted to you. Stand ready, — i. e., with a lamp lighted and trimmed. Who- soever wants what is right to be done, and best, will assuredly have it. Very affectionately yours, Horace Bushnell. Boston, Weduesdfiy, May 30, 1849. My dearest Wife, — I will turn aside this morning for an hour or two, and have a little talk with you. I have a good many things to say, in the way of small talk and news, which I will reserve till 1 return, I am looked at here by the mass 222 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. as a kind of horned animal, though not by all. After the prayer -meeting yesterday morning, Mr. Blagden, who in- quired very particularly after you, took me by the hand and said he wanted to see me. We had a long and very pleasant talk. Kirk dined with us yesterday, and, by Blagden's sug- gestion, invited me to an interview with the editors of the Ohsei'vatory, Friday afternoon, when we shall have a full talk, at least. Edward Beecher preached at me sub rosa before the Pastoral Association yesterday, on pantheism. A new paper, called the Congregationalist, edited by Edward Beecher, Ha- vens, and Tarbox, is out with the first number, having a com- munication from Baker full sail against me. I meet, an hour or two hence, with Havens and Tarbox. I parted with Rog- ers just now, who asked me to preach for him on Sunday morning, which I shall do. I think, on the whole, that I shall be able to turn this tide a little before I leave. I am rejoiced that I came on here, for it has been very pleasant thus far. It is a little wonderful to me that I have so great indifference to the stare and half -horror with which I am looked upon. I thank God that he enables me to turn it all so easily into comfort and peace ; for I have a sense of God, and his love and his approbation, that is wonderfully sweet- ened by the bitterness about me. How blessed a thing it is to retreat into God from the scowls of men, and hide in the secret of his pavilion ! I never felt more true repose of spirit than has been granted me since I came into the midst of these elements of ill-nature and disturbance. . . . My pen won't write a true mark. I hope that I have put a little truth into the false marks. Give my tender love to the children. Yours ever, Hoeace Bushnell. To Dr. Bartol. Hartford, July 31, 1849. My dear Feiend and Beothee, — I have been about writ- ing you many times of late ; that is, I have had thoughts reach- ing after you and asking liberty to go ; but, alas ! I have too much to do that I would not, to be able to do what I would, LETTERS. 223 a condition very mncli resembled to sin, you perceive. I am getting to be so miicli cast out, that I sometimes think I shall have to turn to you, or in some other direction, to escape isolation. However, I must not say exactly this ; for, though I am very much out of confidence, I have some friends who stick to me, and there is beginning, in fact, to be a little token of reaction ; the tide is turning, and with signs that it will, by- and-by, become a full tide the other way. I have never told you that a committee has been raised in my Association to report on my book, which the movers un- doubtedly meant should end in a trial. But they have no courage equal to their attempt, and are visibly looking round to see how they will best get off with a good grace themselves. So, at least, I think. Thank God, the day is coming when Love will be the big- gest and truest truth of all, and the best of all confessions; and then, if we have it, I think we shall be orthodox beyond a question. The great thing now is to make something of the heart, and especially of union to God. What is it, — what is it ? A very deep study ! I pray God we may be success- ful in it, and then we shall know more about Christianity than all the words-men of the ages past. . . . In those troublous times, it was a matter ef heart-felt satis- faction that there were a few friends who stood by him faith- fully and manfully. Of these, none did abler or more efficient service than the Rev. Amos S. Chesebrough, then pastor of the Congregational Church in Chester, Conn. In the Relig- ious Herald for July Tth, he published an article over the signature C. C, with the heading " Do they understand him ?" which showed in the clearest manner that the reviewers of Dr. Bushnell were at odds among themselves in their inter- pretation of his book. The inconsistency of the several criti- cisms with one another was shown by the device of arranging them in opposite columns, so that at a glance the eye could take in the discrepancy. A second article, headed " What is orthodoxy V demonstrated by quotations that the reviewers were as far apart from one another as they were from Dr. 224 LIFE OF IIOKACE BUSHNELL. Bnslmell. And tluis was revealed the fact of more than one heretic. Other articles followed, which, together with some of the same series declined by the publisher of the Herald on prudential grounds, were, at the request of several prominent la^'men, collected and published in a pamphlet, with the title " Contributions of C. C, now declared in full as Criticus Crit- icorura :" in that form they were widely distributed shortly before the meeting of the Association, which was occupied, as we shall soon see, with an examination of the new book. Dr. Bushnell, perhaps, did not overrate the importance of their influence at that critical time, when he said, in his emphatic way, that " they saved his head." There was much of quiet wit in their very method, together with a pleasant freedom from controversial fluster ; while the critical work was j)er- fornied in so clear and just a manner, and in a spirit so ad- mirable and yet positive, that no one groping in the mists of dogmatic theology could read them without feeling the at- mosphere cleared and lightened. We are glad, also, to recall, in this connection, that the Rev. Henry Goodwin, a member of Dr. BushnelFs church, and at that time a licentiate in the ministry, entered earnestly into the discussion, and wrote for the weekly papers several vigor- ous articles in defence of his pastor. These articles were the first indications of a literary ability afterwards shown to be of a high order. To the Rev. A. S. Cheselroiigh. Hartford, August 29, 1849. Dear Brother C, — I write you a hasty note from the book- store, as it rains too hard to go home for it. I am glad to see you at work, especially as you work in the right manner. The theme on which you are now engaged is the theme of all others ; and I am sure if you are able to open it but a little way, which is about all any of us can do, it will repay your neuralgia with interest. I ask no repayment for the long trials of patience and the hard struggles of work I have encountered in the discussion of this theme. It is all MEETINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 225 life, eternal Life. If there be anything that will spread the liorizon of the mind, or rather quite take it away,- it is this. I have no thought of publishing just now. But I want very much to have you go on and publish. You need have no hesitation, after you get your matter ready. You will do good, and things are just now turning so as to give you as much effect as possible. Dr. Beecher came to me in a most fatherly w\ay, the other day, and after a full talk the old man was perfectly satisfied of my soundness (apart from speculative theory), rejoiced with tears at the discovery, went directly over to Farmington and saw Dr. Porter ; and the substance of the report of the committee, i. ark in the centre of the city. They got wind easily of the place, and though receiving my petition with a little good-natured laughter, they allowed me personally a degree of consideration I had not much right to expect : they agreed to have an informal, extra-legal meeting, and hear me. I carried in a large map of the ground, with all the walks, drives, and fountains extemporized on it — a map which I now find, by comparison, corresponds more closely with the pres- ent outlines than could well have been expected — and hung it up in the council-room. I then gave a running exposition of the plan that occupied more than an hour. The stress of my endeavor was to raise an imagination of the picture it would make, so different from the filthy picture it then was ; 316 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. knowing well that, if the imagination was carried, the judg- ment would be. I took them on the high grounds, in this manner, to look down the sloping lawns, round upon the city spires standing guard in their places, and out, tlirough the street vistas opened here and there, on some of the fine frontages presented. I then passed round to look on the park itself in full dress, through the same vistas inverted ; making much here of the fact that our two railroads pass by together on a high bank just across the narrow river, so that all travellers and strangers, coming in or passing through, will look directly across the lawns and up the slopes of Col- lege Hill, deriving thus their first and best possible impres- sions of the city. I did not omit, also, to speak of the wretch- ed, filthy quarter shortly to be steaming here, if this improve- ment fails, and already giving notification of the city by smell, and not by beauty in the eye. I seemed, on the whole, to have made an impression quite as favorable as I expected. And probably it w\as in half -persuaded feeling that one of the rather unilluminated city-fathers got heart for his gentle protestation, in passing out, "Why, it W'ill cost ten thousand dollars !" At the next regular session of the Council the question was taken up, and a committee raised to report on the proj- ect, making estimates of the probable value of the proper- ties concerned. The late D. F. Kobinson, Esq., a public-spir- ited gentleman, favorable to all real improvements, was placed at the head of the committee. They attended promptly and carefully to their appointment, expending great labor in hunt- ing up the boundaries, ownerships, and titles, and faithfully appraising the values of the thirty or forty properties. They made their unanimous report, November 14, 1S53, in favor of the proposed improvement, placing, it must now be agreed, all future generations of the city under unspeakable obliga- tions for the services they freely rendered. . . . On the twenty-second of December following, the Council decided to proceed in laying off the park, and, npon a day appointed, went upon the ground in a body to make proc- lamation to the owners of their intended occupation. The TITLES SECURED. 317 question was then put to a vote, by a general ballot of the people, January 5, 1854, and the plan was approved by a vote of nearly three to one. It now remained to get in the titles to the property, and as the matter was not pressed by the committee faster than mat- ters of only public interest commonly are, I made myself the two principal contracts for the property, comprising more than half the total amount, and had the documents prepared for them, waiting only execution by them, in the forms of law ; foreseeing that when this was done, as it shortly was, the matter would be fastened, and it must somehow go on to completion. Absent, after this, a great part of the time for two years, I found, on ray return, that nothing had been done to get in the other properties ! Having no right of action at any time, except as from behind committees, I was obliged to use some caution, lest I should lose that rather slender right by making myself an annoyance ; but I had an argument, pun- gent enough Avhen quietly put, to set things in motion again : " Are you proposing to lose, for the city, the fifty or sixty • thousand dollars already expended, or will you save it by go- ing on to make it available ?" Within about another year's time all the properties were bonght in by. contract witli the owners ; as, of course, they never could have been but for the new statute-right of the charter pressing them from be- hind. The result was, that the city now had a full right in fee in the new property, and not a mere easement right that would be untransferable. But, behold, the seeming advantage thus gained brought in shortly a new turn of peril, putting the w^iole improvement in jeopardy, and requiring a new campaign to save it ! A petition was brought into the Coun- cil, favored by a sectional influence and by certain members in the body always opposed to the park, to have the whole property sold, as it could be at a good profit, and a smaller ground purchased on the historic hill of the Charter Oak. Ao;ain we had a rather tight conflict of two or three weeks in the public papers, and the peril was broken. 318 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. Next came the question of a plan ; where a prize competi- tion, offered by the Council, brought in eight or ten for the judgment of the plan committee, of which I was a member. One of these made a broad platform terrace of the high gronnd, and a kind of causeway for a drive round the low ground on the river, and was drawn so handsomely that we were likely to be taken by it. Happily, it was to be immensely expensive, and I was able to get it rejected ; promising, if I might put the city engineer at work, to fur- nish a plan that would cost not more than twenty-five thou- sand dollars. Mr. Marsh, the engineer, did not profess to be an artist, though it is much to his credit in this line that he suggested and built the low, stepping-stone, cascade dam, which is a very picturesque and pretty ornament. The plan was drawn b}^ him as promised, accepted, and the following year executed, under the supervision of Alderman Jewett. By no fault either of Mr. Marsh or Mr. Jewett, the look was unsatisfactory. The grading was all in a right direction, as far as it went, but to save expense too many lines were left, and there was too little flow. If there was any blame in the matter, it belonged to me ; only it was such blame as had for its merit that we had escaped by it an immense and totally ruinous blunder — a plan that made no landscape, but only an overdone scene of spasmodic art-violence rather. If, now", any apology is wanted for massing these particu- lars, it must be enough to say that I have done it to show how many things must be carefully prepared, as carefully watched, and persistently pushed, by the man who will get any city public into and through a great improvement of this kind. Wearied, and W'Orried, and hindered, he must never sleep, never be beaten, never desist ; and if, by a whole five years of toil, he gets his work on far enough to become an interest in itself, and take care of itself, he does well, and there may rest. . . . Much anger and severity have been, of course, encountered, and I have had my share of it. Shortly after the ground had been taken, it happened tliat the huge old grist-mill at one end, and the soap-works at the other, were burnt down; INTEREST IN OTHER PUBLIC MATTERS. 319 whereupon it was even cliarged upon nie, in apparent sinceri- ty, by an anonymous letter, that I had set these fires to help on mj project. Now the park is universally popular — I do not know that it has an enemy. Millions of dollars would not buy the property. And I hear of it as being said, every few days, by one or another of the old economic gentlemen that opposed it with most feeling, '■'•After all, the hest invest- Tnent our city has ever made is the parlor This one thing is now clear to us all, that everything in the outward look of our city has been improving since the park was made. Our endeavors have courage in them ; for we see that we can have a really fine city. Indeed, the park has already "iidded millions to the real estate values of our property. . . . Yours with much respect, Horace Bushnell. The manufactures of the City of Hartford would, doubt- less, have prospered much more greatly, and the city itself have been in a better line of growth, had another of Dr. Bushnell's pet schemes, that of bringing down from Wind- sor the great water-power of the Connecticut, found favor in the eyes of our citizens. In the survey made to test its fea- sibility he was greatly interested, and he considered the plan as one vital to the welfare of the city. As early as the year 1847 he had exerted all his private influence, and, indirectly, his public influence also, to forward the measure. When, at a later date, it was again discussed, he went into the study of the project thoroughly, acquainting himself with the survey- ors' drawings and estimates, and familiarizing himself with every detail, as, perhaps, no other private citizen has ever done. But he hesitated as to his right to urge again in pub- lic a measure of such magnitude. At our present time of writing, early in the year 1880, a measure of public interest in Hartford, the bridging of the railroad-crossing on Asylum Street, has been, after a long si- lence, brought up and discussed anew. It has been interest- ing to find how often in the public meetings Dr. Bushnell's suggestions and plans for the work have been referred to, as still having interest and value for the citizens of Hartford. 320 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. " lie, being dead, yet speaketh," even in these ordinary mat- ters of practical life. A gentleman, who has himself done much to forward the improvements of our Connecticut towns and villages, both by his writings and by personal effort — the Eev. K. H, Egleston — sent to the Hartford Courant, after Dr. BushnelFs death, this appreciative statement of what had been done by him for the cit}' of his adoption : — " No event, since that baud of emigrants from Newtown made their way through the primeval forest and began the settlement of Hartford, has been fraught with greater interest to the city than the act of the North Church, more than forty years ago, in calling and securing Dr. Bushuell for its pastor. What a harvest has come from that seed ! " It is his distinction that not only hj an unequalled professional emi- nence has he benefited this place and forever linked its name with his own, but by the force of his genius he has been a benefit to the city in so many and such important relations. What interest of Hartford is not to-day indebted to him as a benefactor ? Do we speak of schools ? The fathers of those who are now enjoying our unsurpassed appliances for public and general education know well that the city is indebted to no one more than to Dr. Bushnell for the new impulse given to its schools, now^ more than twenty-five years ago, which lifted them to their present o-rade of excellence. Do we speak of taste and culture ? Who has been a nobler example and illustration of both, or who has by his just criti- cism and various instructions so aided in their development ? " Do the citizens of Hartford take pride in the knowledge that they live in a beautiful city — beautiful not only in natural situation, but in the style and disposal of its public and private buildings, and in the air of neatness and thoughtful care which so generally pervades the place? Who has done more than Dr. Bushnell to make our city the admiration of the passing traveller as well as the delight of those who have it for their home ? The park, Avhich fitly bears his name, is only a conspicuous, instance of what he has been doing for the beautifying of the city these many years. How many buildings, public and private, are the better for his wise suggestions. How many builders have profited by his mechan- ical skill and his artistic sense. The very street paver has l^een indebted to him for some helpful word, and surveyors and engineers have found him at home in their occupations, and often able to give them instruction. And so, if we turn to the business interests of the cit}', who of its older residents does not remember how, years ago, at a time when the impres- sion had become prevalent that Hartford had reached its growth— that it was declining while other cities were outstripping it in trade and busi- ness, and the younger and more enterprising were beginning to remove WHAT HE DID FOR HARTFORD. 321 to other and, seemingly, more promising fields of activity — Dr. Busbnell lifted himself up in that crisis, and asserted not only the ability but the duty of the city to prosper, and how, as it may be truly said, he woke the city to new life, and gave an impulse to its business interests which has been felt to this day ? And so, not to speak of other illustrations of the fact, this many-sided man has made himself felt in this city in every direc- tion, and in respect to every worthy calling and interest, as no other man has ever done. Hartford has felt him, feels him to-day everywhere. It may be doubted whether another instance in our own history is to be found of a man impressing himself in so many ways, and with such force, upon a place of any such size p.nd importance as this. Hartford is largely what he has made it." 322 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. CHAPTER XYI. 1854. PRIVATE LETTERS. — CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. HAWES. — PUBLIC BASIS OF AGREEMENT.— DR. BUSHNELL'S POSITION QUESTIONED.— INTERPRETATION BY DR. PHELPS.— LAST GUN OF THE CONTROVERSY. The private letters of the year 1854 are few in number, and bear the marks of preoccupation and ill-health. From New York he wrote, early in January, to Mrs. Bushnell, apropos of some musical pleasures he had been enjoying : — . , , Thus much for what, to you, has only a secondary and small interest. For the rest, I will say that yesterday, Sun- day, was to me, shut up in my prophet's chamber, a really good and blessed day, such a day as I have not had for a long time. Between the " Holy War" of Bunyan and the feebler one of Bushnell, I got a little strength. I was very nigh to you, did you know it ? Look out for me, for I shall some- times be closer at hand than you think. I was led in partic- ular, yesterday, to question whether I had not lost a great deal as regards tlie genuineness of my Christian exercises, by a form of piety living wholly in this world, bringing in too lit- tle the world to come. A new and wholly modern style of error, but one that may be even worse than that which is all in the future and looks for nothing here ! How clear is it that we must be saved by liope, that we want the prospect of another state in the eye to call us off from the thraldom and the close limitation of this lifetime state. . . . To Dr. Bartol. Hartford, January 16, 1854. My dear Friend, — I meant to have written you before this, but, between my park and my sermons, and my visiting LETTERS. " 323 and my indolence, I have come short, By-the-way, the park is now carried, and is to be a fact, — a very great thing for Hartford, much greater than most of the people know. We shall have a pnhlic gronnd which, including that of the college, that is to be virtually part of the same, comprises fifty acres, — larger, as you will see, than your Common, It became a tremendous load upon me, — this park matter. If I had known beforehand how much thought and anxiety it would cost, I am afraid I should have played Jonah. But the struggle is over, and abating the fact that I have stirred up the money-hunkers against me, as I had the theological hunkers before, I should be altogetlier satisfied and glad. One thing I have learned b}'' this undertaking, viz., to won- der why it is that, as a Christian teacher and pastor, I am so feebly exercised, so little burdened by my work. It fills me with doubt, and shame, and grief; and the result has been to make me fully resolved that I will either be a more respon- sible, more efficient minister of Jesus Christ, or none, I can- not shake off those words oi- Paul, they are ringing continu- ally in my ears, " I have great heaviness," etc. This park matter has been a kind of revelation to me, which I pray God I may never forget. Why should I carry a park to bed with me, and work it over in my dreams during the night, and wake in it in the morning, and yet be so little exercised in the magnificent work of the Gospel and the care of souls? It makes me doubt whether, doing a thing professionally, we do not sometimes do it idly and perfunctorily, as if we did it not. Do we really believe that Jesus is a Saviour, and that, in any significant sense of the words, he brings salvation ? Thoughts of this kind have been working in me of late with such power that I have become wholly dissatisfied with myself. I thought I meant something when I preached Christ to men ; but I see that I must do more, that I must have the men upon my spirit, that I must bear them as a burden and hold myself responsible for them. God help me ! I thank you for your sermon on the " New Planet." It is a most lively and ingenious affair. Ah, these perturbations ! How much do they signify ! And yet, for one, I should like 324 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. it if thej were well over. Give my love to your dear wife and L , and forgive tliis double epistle. I did not mean to run so far. Yours ever, H. Bushxell. To the Rev. A. S. Chesebrough. Hartford, January 23, 1854. Dear Bkothek C, — I have not heard from you for a long time, but I hope you are doing well, — getting ready to take your place again in the good harness of duty. These are getting to be quite lively times, ecclesiastically speaking. The H letter affair, arid the Consociation, etc., have come to the light since I saw yon. In one view it is very ridiculous ; in another it is very sad. l^ay, in still an- other, it is sad because it is ridiculous. May God in his mercy deliver me, as long as he lets me stay in this life, from all this ecclesiastical brewing of scandals and heresies, the w^ire-pull- ing, the schemes to get power or to keep it, the factions got np to ventilate wounded pride and get compensation for the chagrin of defeat, — all, the whole, from Alpha to Omega, Lord save me from it ! The mournful thing of it is, that no man can be in it and be in the love of God. I think I am certain of it. How can a manager in this field be in the peace also of the Spirit ? How can a heart burn with the holy fire when the unholy and earthly is burning so fiercely in it? I am cheered just now with some good signs appearing among my people, and cannot but hope that I shall soon see a turning of many to the Lord. I have never seen a spirit of prayer in the brethren more beautifully revealed ; and I think I have some degree of preparation myself for the good work. Oh, that I had such a work on my hands for once as would kill my selfishness and compel me for a time to think of nothing else ! Yours ever, . H. Bushnell. To Br. Bartol. Hartford, April 20, 1854. My deak Feiend, — I meant to have acknowledged your beautiful sermon, or testimony and tribute to "the good phy- LETTERS. 325 sician," but I have been a good deal spent and run out in the doing power hxtelj, wliich has kept back my good intentions. I was exceedingly delighted with this sermon. I think it is one of the healthiest, best conceived things you have ever done. The subject is one of the richest interest, partly from association, perhaps, recalling Christ as minister and physi- cian, both in one ; and the character itself is one so genuine, so honestly and yet so delicately drawn. I have a great fond- ness for these pluperfect characters, such, I mean, as have the force to make their bad or mal- proportional qualities honorable. And this kind of Abernethy formation, I believe, is more likely to appear in physicians than among any other class of men. These are the spiced men, and they carry so much of antiseptic influence with tliem, that it is quite in place to have them in sick-chambers. I like such a kind of man for a physician ; for, if one must even die, it is good to die not only in the extreme unction of holy converse and song, but to have the sense of a little of this world's robust- ness at hand, and an occasional crack of natural force in the chamber. I delivered a fanatical sermon on the fast-day just gone by which I am requested to publish, and if I am weak enough in my head to consent, and strong enough in my body to prepare it, I may some day send you a copy. If it comes, take the precaution to open your windows and make ready for the explosion. I should like mightily to see you and yours here this spring. I would show you some of this world's fair things in June that are not beaten often. . . . Yours ever, H. Bushnell. The " fanatical sermon " w\as from the text, " Shall iron break the Northern iron and the steel?" — a far-sighted ob- servation of the sectional difficulties growing up within the Union, and an appeal to Xorthei'n men to oppose a manly front to Southern encroachments, to have done with all com- promises, and to show "the. steel" to all political gamesters and plotters of treason. 326 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. To the Hev. A. S. Chesehrough. Hartford, April 20, 1854. My dear Brother C, — It has just come back to me tliat I owe you a letter, and had meant to pay the debt promptly. My excuse must be that I am in a poor, bankrupt state, and scarcely able, if I would, to pay my honest debts. All fig- ure apart, I am very much exhausted, depressed, hoarse, etc., which disinclines and incapacitates me, in a sense, for the good I would do. It is a little singular that, when God is vindicating and clearing me, in a manner so conspicuous, he should also be taking down my force and spirit, and my consequent enjoy- ment of his favor. However I do enjoy it, and am really grateful to him for his undeserved kindness. I only do not triumph, as I clearly enough see that I might, and in one view ought. You do not know that Dr. Ilawes and I are coming out shortly in a proclamation of peace. The diplomatics are set- tled already, and I am only waiting for him to be well enough to act, as he tells me that he will. All this between us, you observe, for the present. I am greatly rejoiced to hear that yon are confident of a complete restoration. Be very careful now, and do only just what you may. We shall be glad, as yon need not hear, to see you at any time and at all times, and, if it happens that we cannot always give you a home at a moment's notice, because the hotel is full, we can tell you so. Yours ever, II. Bushxell. The adjustment with Dr. TIawes, here alluded to, was the final result of a long correspondence, now reproduced entire, that all the facts may appear in the clearest light. The two omissions made do not afliect in any way the tone of the cor- respondence. Hartford, March 20, 1854. Hev. Dr. IIawes: Dear Brother, — I have been greatly pressed, of late, by the religious state of onr community ; and, as you are equally CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. IIAWES. 327 concerned with myself for the common cause, I have a right to assume that yon are as much burdened as I for the hin- drances that may obstruct our success and progress in the work of our Master. It is remarkable that we have so many movings of spiritual preparation and indications of promise, and yet so little of momentum or of real effect. My own Christian people have been called to earnest prayer on each of the three successive winters now past. The same was true of yours, as I had opportunity to know, two years ago ; and the same, as I hear, is true now. I have never seen so raucli of a real spirit of prayer among my people as I have seen for the last two months. But, in all these successive movements and tokens of promise, it is remarkable that some unseen fatality prevents our getting on beyond a certain point. The motion drags heavily, like a loaded coach in a miry road. Keviewing all these tokens, and asking what is the cause of our recurring disappointments, I have been led more and more to the conviction that the unhappy relations subsisting between us and our churches is the standing hindrance to God's truth in our community. The attitude we are in, even if we are satisfied with it ourselves, or with ourselves in it, is really not Christian to others. And it operates not only in those persons who make a pretext of it, or raise a cavil over it, — that would be a small matter, — but it operates silently and unconsciously in those who think not of it, diminishing the dignity and desecrating the sacredness of religion in their minds. Hence the remarkable want of true or tonic force manifested in the religious convictions. We are throwing out our coals all the while on ice, and they are speedily extin- guished. Plainly some impassable hindrance or barrier lies across our path, and I begin to think it will be so,' forbidding us any clear progress in our work, till our position as minis- ters is somehow rectified and made to be more truly Chris- tian. Shall we, can we consent to this? I know very well that you regard your position towards me as one that you are compelled to hold, by a conscientious fidelity to the truth. But I am only the more certain, since 22 328 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. that is all, that we might as well be at one, as to be chained to this position of apparent hostility ; for I am as clear as I can be that nothing is necessary to satisfy you entirely, but simply to know exactly where I am. I have always said, hav- ing never yet one doubt of the fact, that your apprehensions would utterly vanish, if only you had full possession of my ground. [Certain doctrinal statements are omitted here, as tbey are exactly re- peated in the finally published basis of agreement.] Is not this enough ? Suppose you should have some diffi- culty in making all my representations tally with this, that may be your difficulty, not mine ; and I am certainly entitled to my position, the more entitled that you have no distrust of my integrity, and, yet more, that I am ministering here, side by side with you, under the same articles. Willing to do any- thing in my power to settle this very lamentable difficulty, I really do not find what more I can say, with a proper self- respect or with justice to the truth. What more can you re- quire? May I ask another and yet more careful revision of your ground, and another application to God that he will help us to clear this mournful hindrance to his cause. To make this request is the particular object for which I write, determined that nothing shall be omitted on my part by which I may facilitate a restoration of our unity and fellow- ship. And this, " Yet once more, signifieth," I trust, " the re- moving of those things that are shaken, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain." Could we now unite, bringing all our churches into a hearty and full co-operation, engaging, if you please, some mutually acceptable preacher to assist us in some common exercises, I believe that results of the greatest consequence would follow. The very fact itself would make a great and powerful impres- sion. The city would be moved, and effects would follow, I am well-nigh certain, that would strengthen our ministry, gladden our people, and give joy to the angels of God. Shall it not be so? Let me hear from you as soon as may be, and let the answer be an answer of peace. Whatever is CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. IIAWES. 329 to be done needs to be done at once. May our God whom we serve direct us into the way of his own good 'counsel and the grace of his Son. I am yours ever, IIokace Bushnell, The response of Dr. Hawes, sent the next day, was as fol- lows : — Hartford, March 21, 1854. Rev. Dr. Bushnell : Dear Sir, — After the failure of our repeated attempts at explanation and reconciliation, some two years since, I frank- ly confess that I opened and read your letter, proposing a new attempt, with not a little faintness of heart. I see and I de- plore, with not less sensibility than yourself, the evils result- ing from the relations which at present exist between us; but I cannot feel that I am in any sense responsible for those evils, nor do I see how it is in my power to change those re- lations. They are not of my creating, nor are they for me to remove. That is an office, I conceive, which, to a great ex- tent at least, lies with you. I remain in the faith in which I entered the ministry, the faith in which the Church I serve was planted, and which is held by the great body of the Evangelical Churches in New England. You have parted from me on that faith. Such is my opinion, honestly formed and honestly held ; and in this opinion I am in agreement with the great majority of those who have read your books, and have expressed their judgment respecting the doctrines they contain. I refer to your books, especially to the first, " God in Christ." I have a deep conviction that the teach- ings of that book are wrong, entirely wrong on the main points discussed. You give me credit for honesty and con- scientiousness in my convictions. How then can you expect me to change them till you furnish me ground for so doing ? In my last interview with you in relation to this subject, I understood you to say that you still retained the sentiments advanced in the volume referred to, and in that mind you published a third edition without retraction or explanation. Still, as I assured you repeatedly, I was and am willing to 330 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. pass over the teachings of your book, and let them be in my mind as if they had not been written, and to meet yon on any presently avowed platform which should accord with the common faith of our orthodox standards and ministers. You made the attempt kindly and honestly, I trust, I was not satisfied. I saw not but, in the several communications you made me, you reaflirmed in substance the doctrines of your book. What more can be done ? You cannot expect me to give up my conscientious con- victions, nor that I should stultify myself in the view of the public, by changing my relations to you without yonr fur- nishing me any sufficient ground for doing so. Give me something on which I can stand, consistently with myself and consistently before the public, and you wdll not find me hard to be won, nor reluctant to meet you as a brother. I would fain have this urdiappy controversy adjusted before it goes up to the great tribunal ; and I would willingly do anything in my power to effect such an adjustment. But I cannot be unfaithful to truth ; I cannot violate my conscience, nor as- sume a position before the public which should say yoic are right and I am wrong, though I would willingly say that, if I could be convinced that such is the fact. I try to school myself very closely in regard to this unhappy affair. It costs me many anxious and sorrowful hours, and much do I pray that my spirit may be kept right in respect to yourself and yours. I do not hate you. I do not oppose you by any di- rect efforts, nor in any manner voluntarily throw myself across your path. I keep about my own work, and, though often greatly tried and discouraged, I endeavor to do all the good I can in the circumstances in which I find myself placed. I have said I do not hate you ; in many respects I love you and respect you, and wish you all happiness in this life and forever. But we ai^e apart, and I do not see how we are to come together. Show me some way, if you can, and you will find me neither obstinate, nor perverse, nor exacting in my demands, but ready to meet you and to work with you on the ground of a common faith and in the service of a com- mon Master. CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. HAWES. 331 There are several things in your letter on which I should like to remark if I had time; but I have not. I have writ- ten much more at length than I intended. It is not pleasant to me, and I doubt whether it is useful, to carry on corre- spondence of this kind and in this manner. It exhausts my time, it tries my feelings, and I fear continually that I may write something that may be misunderstood, or draw me into prolonged discussion. To this I feel very much averse, and must avoid it. You know the position of my mind, and I am too old, if there were no other reason, to change it lightly. If you are right, — are with me and with the ministers of New England wlio hold the truth, as you say you are, — you can easily con- vince me of the fact ; but you must not refer to your book in proof of it, nor reaffirm the doctrines taught in the book. May God bless you, bless us, and give us wisdom to know and love his truth, and stand faithfully by it. Yours affectionately, J. Hawes. Hartford, March 23, 1854. Rev. De. Hawes : Dear Sir, — You w^ill pardon me another letter if I excuse you from the trouble of a reply. I cannot but thank God for the manifestly kind and Christian spirit of your letter. .1 am glad, also, to see that you are not insensible to the sor- rowful hindrances which, between us, are laid in the way of religious impressions in our communit3\ But it is the more remarkable to me, on this account, that you fail so completely to catch the meaning of my letter; and do not even notice (that I can discover) the advances I was tender- ing to relieve, if possible, your position. I knew that you were wanting something which you could accept as a valid and .substantial assent to the great points of doctrine sup- posed to have been controverted by me ; something, too, which you could use in a public way. In this view I gave you in two sentences (1) an explicit assent to the Nicene doctrine of Trinity, as reaffirmed by the Westminster As- sembly; (2) an assent equally explicit to the "equivalent ex- 332 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. pression " doctrine of tlie work of Christ, — the same which is commonly held in New England in terms entirely convenient or consonant to what I hold as a part of the true doctrine. Meeting you in terms like these, I only took care to set the statements in such a connection or framework that if you should have a mind to publish them it might read, not like something dictated or prescribed, but like something sponta- neously offered. And now you reply, taking no notice what- ever of these advances for which alone my letter was written, that if I " will give you something on M-hich 3'OU can stand, some presently avowed platform whicli shall accord with the common faith," you will endeavor to meet me ! My dear brother, on what can you stand ? What is your orthodox platform? If you cannot meet me in the Westminster As- sembly doctrine of Trinity, or the current terms of the New England doctrine of equivalent expression, just where you must accept the vast majority of your brethren or not at all, then where can you meet me ? Excuse me if I suggest the possibility that you are allow- ing things to hinder you, in coming to a right adjustment of this question, which really have nothing to do with it — such as these : 1. The recollection of past efforts which failed. This is a new attempt, not an old one resumed. 2. The question of blame, whether it is with you or with, me. If with me, your duty still is to catch at any means possible of removing so great a scandal. 3. Your consistency before the public. Tlie question is not what is consistent, but what is right ; not wdiat was re- quired of you in one condition, but w^hat is now required in another. Forgive me, then, if I hear you with sorrow when you talk, as in your letter, of " acting consistently with your- self before the public," and imagining how the public, will say " you are right and I am wrong." If you cannot make your consistency appear when you have an explicit assent to everything you have ever dared to require, or to the very standards by which you test all orthodoxy, M-hen or how can you ? I am quite willing to risk my consistency in giving CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. HAWES. 333 siicli an assent. But a much better way for us both would be to let our cousistency take care of itself, and look after nothing but our duty to the truth. 4. My past avowals or disavowals, and the possibility of reconciling these with what I may now say. If I have print- ed a book that you regarded as unsound (judging as you now think rightly), and. if still I meet you with a clear assent to the very standards which you supposed to be rejected, you have no right longer to repulse me and cast me off as hereti- cal, unless you have reason to think that I am insincere and artful. You have no right, in other words, to require, under given standards, that all my reasonings, solutions, and the like, shall accord with yours, or that they should not be con- trary to yours, and even contraiy, in your view, to the stand- ards assented to. You cannot fall back on your former ad- verse judgment, for it is a part of the case that matter sub- sequent has varied the conditions. You can only say, " Here is new matter. Retaining my conviction respecting the old matter, I cannot reject the new, and, though I cannot recon- cile the two, I can admit the honest absurdity of the man." Do me the favor to look over my letter again, and you will see that you have a very different case on hand from what you have supposed. Do not foreclose the question in this manner, by assuming the right to despair. Put these mat- ters out of the question that so plainly have nothing to do with it, and take in, to fill their places, the universal grief we are to the best people in our churches, the hindrances we op- pose to their prayers, the discouragements we inflict on their efforts, and the fact that not even a missionary, circulating in the lowest tier of sin and sorrow in our city, can there pro- pose the good of Christ, without having your and my sep- aration thrown in his teeth. Neither allow yourself to be tempted by what you suppose to be a verdict against me, passed by the ministers of New England. No such verdict has ever been passed, and you are greatly deceived if you think so. The noise, as was natural, was with you, but the feeling and sentiment are with me — as you may see in the fact that everything you attempt against me is a failure. I 334 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. sit still and lose nothing. Your verdict party agitate, con- trive and strain, and carry nothing, for the very simple rea- son that the public mind is not with you. And, if you live ten years, you will hear it openly confessed that I have been a most forward and timely supporter of the very points you have taken to be overthrown. Not even your own people, now, are in the verdict you speak of. Much as they love you, they almost universally lament your position towards nie ; and when you can find a way out of it, without violence to your conscience, they will most heartily rejoice. It is my duty to say that this present effort is the last which I ever expect to make for tlie healing of the breach between us ; not because I would not make a hundred others, if there were any better result to be hoped for, but I see not how I can possibly do more than to give you my unqualified assent to everything which you require of others whom you hold in confidence. Henceforth my appeal must be to the public ; for I am determined to clear myself before these churches of any participation in the blame of our present di- vided and alienated state. With njany prayers, and a heart burdened with sorrow for the suffering cause of our Master, I am yours, Horace Bushnell. There were points in this appeal wdiich Dr. Hawes could not but feel keenly, and at his request Dr. Bushnell prepared the subjoined letter, as a basis of public agreement. It reit- erates some of the points in the former letters, but omissions would not here be in order. To Dr. Hawes. Hartford, April 3,1854. My dear Brother, — I am greatly pressed, and have been for some time past, by the religious state of our community, and especially by the suspicion that you and I, who ought, by our unity and earnest co-operation, to be promoters only of God's work (which I know it is fully in our hearts to be), are yet, in fact, and to a mucli greater extent than we should be willing to admit, hindrances, instead, and obstructions. It is CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. IIAWES. 335 very true that there is no such personal repngnance or ani- mosity subsisting between us as onr separation externally in- dicates ; but we are none the less responsible for the indica- tions on that account. We have no right even to seem hos- tile ; and the less that, by such appearance of alienation, we provoke the cavils of our community, embolden their sin, and weaken the tone of their religious convictions — discouraging, of course, the prayers of our most faithful brethren, and quite neutralizing, there is reason to fear, by this indirect method, the efficacy of our positive ministrations — all which, I am sure, is not less painful to you than to me. It is unworthy of our character as Christian ministers ; and I have come to the very deliberate conclusion that, whatever occasion it may seem to have had, we have reached a point where it is clearly unnec- essary to be continued longer. I have uniformly disclaimed the constructions put on the language of my books in the allegations of my brethren ; and the opinions most prominent with them as grievances, or de- partures from the faith, I have as uniformly and peremptori- ly disavowed. And this, according to all usage in matters of impeachment, is a sutKcient and final answer. Still, I am not unwilling to give you assurances more definite and positive. The two points in regard to which you were at first dis- turbed on my account, were the Trinity and the Atonement. As regards the first, I did suppose myself, when I published my first book, that without rejecting a trinity as one of the highest and even most practical truths of religion, I had bro- ken loose from any particular doctrine of trinity contained in the so-called orthodox formulas. That you should have taken up a like conviction with myself is certainly not remarkable. But I afterwards found, on a more deliberate historic investi- gation, that instead of rejecting, as I had supposed, and w^as quite willing to have others understand, the Nicene doctrine, I had actually come into it, only from another quarter. Ac- cordingly, if now I say that I assent to this formula of trini- ty, in its true historic sense, as a doctrine of eternal gener- ation, assenting, of course, to the Westminster Confession, which is only an abridged and less complete exposition of 336 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. the same, I think I may assume that your difficulties on this liead must be entirely removed. Your ground of concern is thus narrowed down to the sin- gle matter of the Atonement. On this point I never supposed that I had cast away anything realhj held by the adherents of any Church doctrine ; though it is exceedingly difficult to say what the Church doctrine is. I supposed that I was only re- vising the form, not that I was reducing or changing the sub- stance. I certainly was not, and am not now, insensible to the immense, all-inclusive import of this great Christian truth, and am therefore as little disposed to complain that you are alive to its paramount consequence, and set yourself, with the utmost fidelity, or even jealousy, to watch for its safety. Let me try, then, if I cannot satisfy you here. I could offer you here my acceptance of the 25th Answer of the Sliorter Catechism, regarding the office-work of '" Christ as a priest," in precisely the sense given it by Dr. Jonathan Edwards the younger, in his second sermon on the Atonement. I could also accept the 33d Answer on the subject of "Justi- fication by Faith," without any such peremptory denial of the "imputed righteousness" as is common with the ministry of New England, and certainly without any qualification that will not leave it standing as a most practical Christian truth. I see not, therefore, how you can think it necessary to ray safety that I should be more literally squared by the Cate- chism than Dr. Edwards, or more truly in it than the living ministers of New England by still another degree. But that I may leave you still less room, if possible, for concern, I will go farther, giving you as a volunteer expres- sion of my faith on this head: — That the work of Christ, viewed in its relation to the law of God, is that by which the forgiveness of sins is made compatible with its integrity and authority; that Christ, to this end, is made under the law — made sin knowing no sin himself, receiving the chastisement of our peace, suffering and dying as a sacrifice for the sins of the world — in all which he is set forth as a propitiation to de- clare the righteousness of God in the remission of sins ; where- by the law broken is as effectually sanctified and sustained in CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. IIAWES. 33 < the view of liis subjects, and his justice as fully displayed as they would be by the inlliction of tlie penalty ; so that, on the ground of the sacrifice made by Christ and received l)y faith, we are justified and accepted before God. Considering now the very qualified respect I have to for- mulas and confessions, I hope you will take these avowals as being only a more decided proof of my personal respect, and the sincerity of my desire for the peace and the restored unity of the body of Christ. If you can find, in what I have advanced, assurances that will justify the resumption of our former relations of amity and confidence, I am sure that you will hasten to profess your satisfaction and congratulate our churches on the settlement of our distractions, and the re- moval of those bars to fellowship by which their prayers and our efforts have unhappily so long been hindered. Nothing will give me so great pleasure as to add my assistance and sympathy to the support of your advancing age and closing ministry, unless it be that I may also have your counsel and confidence to support the conscious ill-desert and weakness of my own. If then God permits us now once more to be united in a covenant of peace, let it be in the prayer that it may be an everlasting covenant, never to be broken. In that love which is the proper seal of such a covenant, and a bond of all perfectness in the observance, I am yours, Horace Bushnell. This letter, and the reply of Dr. Hawes, were printed to- gether in the Religious Herald. Of the latter — part of w4iich was a lengthy discussion of doctrines — we will repeat only the closing sentences, as fairly including bis main points, and indicating the more gracious feeling to which he had been won. "In saying this, I deem it due to myself to add that I am not to be understood as having changed my views as to the main teachings of your book. I pass them by as what I can- not accept for truth, hastening to redeem my pledge to meet you on a presently avowed platform of doctrine, which I 33S LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. deem sound and scriptural ; and I trust it will be found a platform on which we shall both be \villing to stand and co- operate, during the brief period, — brief to me at least it must be, — in which we may be continued in the vineyard of our Master. And sure I am that my sun will go down brighter, and I shall leave this much-loved field of my labors and my prayers with a happier mind and more cheering hopes if, as I close my course, I may think of these dear churches of our Lord as rooted and grounded in the truth, and their pastors as happily united in fellowship and love, and contending ear- nestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. Your brother in Christ, J. Hawses. Thus was established, finally, a practical basis of co-opera- tion in ministerial work. But Dr. Hawes was not one to do things by halves, and he allowed himself to slide, by imper- ceptible degrees, into a heartily fraternal relation with Dr. Bushnell. It took time to eifect this, but the final result was a genuine friendship. Dr. BushnelFs letter has been considered by some of his Unitarian friends as equivalent to a recantation of a part of his former statements, or at least as a yielding of new^ ground which he had occupied. That he did not so consider it him- self w^e have his own most unequivocal assertion. We have read in his private letter to Dr. Hawes, under date March 23d, one clause which is doubtless the key to his position in this matter. He says, " You have no right to require, under given standards, that all my reasonings, solutions, and the like, shall accord with yours, or that they should not be contrary to yours, and even contrary, in your view, to the standards as- sented to." We must remember that Dr. Bushnell had nev- er ceased to consider himself orthodox according to the an- cient standards ; in fact, that he felt it to be his mission to rescue certain important truths of orthodoxy from the mire into which they had fallen. These doctrines in their original shape were, in his opinion, purer and more free from objec- tionable features than New England theology had left them. At the same time, it is evident that, in renovating these old HIS POSITION AMONG THEOLOGIANS DEFINED. 339 truths, lie had breathed into them more of his individual vi- tality than he was himself quite aware of. There has been no better statement made of his mental position, relative to that of other theological thinkers, than is .contained in the following paragraph by Dr. Austin Phelps, of Andover : — " He honestl}'^ believed that, in his divergence from the popular theory of the Atonement, he retained all that was essential to a saving faith. Not only this, but he believed that he retained more of truth than his critics did : his diver- gence was no divergence, but only a deepening of the old dogma; it was a delving into a vein of underlying truth. More even than this ; he thought that he was nearer to the fountain-head of the very doctrine which his critics were try- ing to conserve than they were themselves. In their imag- ined conflict with himself, he thought that to a large extent they battled with men of straw of their own creating. He could afford, therefore, to sj^eak very genially of his oppo- nents. They were, in his view, unconscious workers with him, so far as they knew. The difference between him and them was only that he knew much more. His drill had pierced a deeper vein of purer gold. He had ' entered into the springs of the sea,' and discovered ' the way where light dwelleth.' They preached Christ, but he more profoundly. ' What then ? Notwithstanding, every way, Christ is preached, and I rejoice.' Such was his apostolic mood." How this apostolic mood, which sustained him throughout his years of trial, was reached and held, may be gathered from this quotation from one of his sermons : — "Nothing, plainly, but some inspiration, or some new im- pulsion of love, such as puts the soul at one with all God's character and future, can possibly settle our applications of duty, and give ns confidence in them. And this is what ev- ery Christian has found many times, if not always, in his own experience. Thus, in some trying condition, where he has not been able by the understanding to settle any wise course of proceeding, how very clear has everything been made to him, step by step, by the simple and consciously single-eyed impulse of love to his Master. And when all is over, when 34:0 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. his crisis is past, his course fought out, his adversaries con- founded, his cause completely justified, his sacrifice crowned, how plain is it to him that he has been guided by a wisdom in his loving affiuities, which he had not in the reasons of his nnderstanding ; all in a way so easy as to be even an aston- ishment to himself. Not to say this, my brethren, out of my own experience, would be to withhold a good confession that is due. All our best determinations of duty are those which come upon us in the immediate light of our iinion to Christ." The last measure in the Bushnell case adopted by "Fair- field West" was in addressing to the General Association, meeting at New Haven, in July, 1854, a set of resolutions with long preamble, " requesting that body to cease from ap- pointing persons to certify to the standing of ministers in its connection, and submitting that if such certificates are given we cannot be responsible for them." They also contrived, by implication, to make the acceptance of their delegates by the Association dependent upon the adoption or admission of the resolutions. The whole tone of the document was so disre- spectful to the body as to provoke general indignation ; and it was proposed either to taljle the resolutions, or to refuse to receive the delegates. Dr. Bushnell said, " My views do not exactly correspond with either of these proposed measures. I would not lay the resolutions on the table, and pass them in silence, as if afraid. Neither let us have any altercation with those five men who constituted the majority of ' Fair- field West ' about our character. It will stand without their endorsement. I would rather introduce a resolution to this effect : ''Besolved, That inasmuch as our brethren of ' Fairfield West' have so lost their confidence in this body, as appears by their resolutions, as to be conscientiously fixed in the opinion that its certificates and recom- mendations are no longer properly entitled to respect ; and since, also, they ought not to be compelled, by reason of their nominal connection •with the body, to lend their implied sanction to its character, it is here- by ordered that the resolutions offered by them be entered on the rec- ords, and published with the minutes of the Association." This resolution not meeting with assent, and debate grow- SPEECH BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSOCIATION. 341 ing general and feeling warm, as tlie true character of the overture became apparent, Dr. Bnshnell, while offering a slightly amended form of his resolutions, spoke substantially as follows : — ■ " I am placed, you perceive, Mr. Moderator, in the somewhat singular attitude of apparent concert with my brethren of ' Fairfield West ;' for I feel obliged^if not in their behalf, yet as a matter of taste, to prefer a milder and more respectful treatment of their resolutions than that which is advised by your committee. It could hardly be expected that I should be found acting against those brethren who have been my friends and protectors in this body, or maintaining, though it be only in ajjpearance, the side of their accusers against them. And I sliould take any course with the greatest reluctance that might seem to indicate a want of gratitude to them; for the manner in which, without any assent to my particular opinions, or consent in them, they have stood fast by my personal rights as a Christian brother, under the terms of order es- tablished by our ecclesiastical system, has placed me under obligations to them of respect and endearment which I can never forget. But I am only the more sure, on this account, that they will bear with me in the course I take and the sentiments I am going to express, because they know, and have so deeply felt themselves, how little reason I may have to be forward in asserting the honors of this body and vindicating the right of its proceedings. It will also be noted that it is the body, not my particular friends just referred to, that is stigmatized in the resolu- tions of the Fairfield brethren ; and towards that, regarding its unhappy meddling in my case for the last five years, I feel constrained to admit that I am moved with as little sense of obligation as possible. I owe the body nothing save what I owe it in the terms of patience and for- giveness. "At the same time, I cannot but regard the resolutions I have pro- posed as affirming a more honorable and dignified position for the body than the resolution offered by your committee. Tlie brethren of Fair- field tell you plainly, and without any show of disguise or softening of respect, that your certificates are unreliable and worthless. Would it not be a little more dignified, if, instead of protesting, in this rather inetficient manner, that you are orthodox, reliable, and responsible, you were simply to say, ' Let your impeachment have the weight your names can give it, and we will publish it for you in the bargain.' And this ex- actly is the ground proposed to be taken in the resolutions I have offer- ed. You throw yourselves upon your character. When these five breth- ren tell you that they ' cannot be responsible for your certificates longer,' you reply, ' We excuse you, then, and we publish your excuse.' This, too, is entirely respectful and even kind to them ; for there is no word of 342 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. rhetoric or sarcasm iu such a disposition of their resohitions : you simply ■ give them what they ask, and nothing else. It is very true that the po- sition they will be in is a hard one for any five men, however distinguish- ed, to maintain ; but since it is exactly what they ask themselves, they certainly will not shrink from it. When first I heard of these resolutions, I raised the inquiry what course might best be taken in regard to them, and I came very soon to the conclusion that the course I have now pro- posed would be most dignified in the body, fairest to the Fairfield breth- ren, and most likely to make a peaceable issue of this very unhappy dis- order. " Bear with me, brethren, if I suggest that you too can much better af- ford to take your position of dignity by assumption, than to make up an issue of fact on the real merit of your course as a body in respect to this matter. It certainly does not become you, at this stage in your proceed- ings, to be over-sensitive to the impeachment of the Fairfield brethren. They did you the greatest affront when they began to ask you to do a Wrong; not now, when they complain that you would not do it! First they commenced their action here against me, next against my Associa- tion, and now they close by an assault upon your body itself, that you would not do their bidding. Until now you have heard them with a de- gree of patience and a show of respect. You have not dared, apparently, to confront them and dismiss them, lest some great disaster should fol- low. You have therefore suffered yourselves to be hectored, and threat- ened, and worried, and twisted all this time by their agitations, contriv- ing always by what compromises of order and ambiguities of language to get rid of their importunities ; but now, when their assault is with- drawn from an individual or district association and turned upon you ; now, when they have spent their show of strength on humbler and less capable oppositions, and turned their w^eakness on your body itself, you begin to show your impatience of the disrespect of their language. It is all too late, my brethren ; the time has gone by for taking any such attitude. Doubtless there is something respectable in confronting the strong and subduing their assaults ; but to spend your strength on the weak, and scent oftences in their words, which but for their weakness you would never think to rebuke, is not, I am sure, any point of dignity. Better is it also, and worthier of respect, to resent the wrongs of others to which they would make you a party, than to wait in patience or par- tially to connive with them till the wrongs are put on you. " Let me show you by a brief recital how you stand related to these brethren. I published a book which many declared to be heretical. My Association immediately took it up, in exact conformity with the thir- teenth Article of Discipline, to inquire whether there was 'just occasion' iu the book for a presentment to Consociation for trial. This prelimi- nary or grand-jury inquest of our system was continued for six months. Evci-y point was carefully debated. I wrote to the extent of a volume, SPEECH BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSOCIATIOX. 343 aud read before the body, that they might have my positions more per- fectly. And finally the inquest Avas closed, in a vote of seventeen to three, that there was 'no just occasion' to present me. This, according to our system, was the finality of the case ; there was no other method of instituting proceedings against me. Then came the ' Fairfield West ' Association to mine in a bitter complaint, insisting that it should recon- sider and reverse its proceedings ! My Association replied that, holding exactly the same doctrines with their brethren, they had formed a difl'er- ent judgment of my position as related to those doctrines, and that, inas- much as their finding was in the nature of a 'judicial proceeding,' they had no longer even a right to revise it, unless some new testimony was adduced. But the Fairfield l^rethren could not rest here. The Central Association of Hartford must not only hold their doctrine, but must judge their judgment under it ! Accordingly, in this very presumptu- ous and disorderly demand, they came to you, complaining to you, and insisting that you should take up their difficulty. You knew that their application was itself a disorder, and that the subject was one over which neither you nor they had any jurisdiction ; but you did not bold- ly say it, and peremptorily dismiss the application. You, in fact, allowed your body every year to be used as an instrument in their unlawful agi- tations, and so to become a public vehicle of slander against one of your brethren. I complained to you, as a humble individual entitled, at least, to the protection of order, but you did not seem to hear me — as I think you will to-day. You debated, contrived, turned the supposed heresy round and round, looked at it Avith a degree of solemnity which said 'it is a fact;' almost said the same in form, but did not say it; al- most blamed my Association, but did not blame them ; almost recom- mended them to present me for a trial, because of the outward dissatis- faction (that is, without the 'just occasion' of the platform and because of the unjust occasion) ; but you did not quite do this. And so, under manifold twistings of semblance and compromise, you have continued unto this day, taking no decided attitude, and standing for no principles of order. ]My case had long ago reached a finality, but you could not say it. The consequence, accordingly, has been, — I hope you will under- stand how much I mean when I say it, — that I have had this body, which ought to have been my protector, together with the Fairfield Associa- tion, on my back for the last five years. And you had no right to be there ! While I have been bearing you thus in silence, with none but God and the truth to sustain my integrity, you have allowed this body, by so many agitations, to do all it could to break down my character as a minister and blast the public confidence in me. And not only so, but you suff"ered these persecutions to go so far, at one time, that my church, having no particular dissatisfaction with our Consociation of churches, were obliged either to withdraw from the Consociation or else to go into a regular campaign, polling the churches of a large region for delegates, 23 344 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. and sustaining tlie fight of a wliole year (for wliicli I tliank God tliey had no taste), in order to get a verdict far less entitled to respect than the one I had obtained already. " That they Avould have carried such a verdict there is no douljt ; for there has never been a time Avhen they were not certain of a vote of the Consociation in my favor of at least two to one ; but they had no charac- ter to spend in such a contest, and a good deal that I was not willing they should spend in a manner so gratuitous, and to satisfy a demand so plainly revolutionary. I therefore consented to their withdrawal from the Consociation. In all which you may see that, by your own neglect of order, you have compelled one of your best and most orderly churches to sunder the bonds of the platform, and take itself out of the reach of the agitations covered and nourished by your indecision. I submit whether now it becomes you, at the closing up of such a history, to be over-sensitive to the affront put upon you by the brethren from Fairfield in their resolutions. The document they send you is one that you have, in fact, been asking for all this time ; and when they come and lay it on your table, it should seem to be only the natural termination of your course. You never meant to engage in their cause, or take ground with them; but they hoped much, and rightly, from your indecision — which hope is now disappointed. "I have only to add that while this agitation has been aimed at me, it Las also laid its stress and based its expectation on the force it could ar- ray against the venerated father in my Association, the Rev. Dr. Porter, who has been foremost and most responsible in all the proceedings of the body concerning my. impeachment. He proposed the inquiry exactly as the platform required. He led the investigation and reported the issue, faithful equally to the truth, the oi'der of the churches, and to me ; and the effort has been to throw your body upon him, and, if possible, break down the confidence of his character and the authority of his judgments. But the day of his honor is now come, and it is to be seen that in the time of his age he has won the crown of age, the brightest and most honorable crown of his life. Now appears the true wisdom of a mind so tempered in the truth as not to be incapable of enduring other and different forms of thought. Here, too, shines the honor of that fidelity which takes responsibilities when they come, and is silent after they are discharged. Doubtless you have caused him many painful struggles, and I suppose he has many times blamed that wavering, irresponsible course by which you, as a body, have turned so much of public odium on his head. But tlie greatness of worth, the grandeur of true honesty, the unconquerable force of modesty, are now proved ; and it is shown, as clear- ly as it may be, that no agitations, or criminations, or combined forces of assault, whether here or elsewhere, can have jDower against a man who is armed before God in the spiritual integrity of his truth." LETTER. • 345 Tills was the last shot of the long and weary battle, and in one sense it was almost his first. At last, and most gladly, we may drop the history of controversy, and turn our eyes to tlie ripe fruition of peaceful years. In iJ^ovember he published in the New Englander an arti- cle on the theme around which his thoughts were so often re- volving,—" The Christian Trinity a practical Truth." The labor of preparing his lectures on "The Supernatural" went on constantly, and absorbed his best strength and thought. To the Rev. A. S. Cheselrough. Hartford, December 15, 1854. My deae Friend, — I received a very kind letter from you some weeks ago, which I have not answered. I hope you will excuse me on the ground of my many infirmities. The fact is, that for the last seven or eight weeks I have been quite disabled, having preached only twice in that time. The mischief began as an influenza, and ran off into bronchitis. In the latter form it sticks fast. I am doubting now whether I must not quit the field and go off to some other climate for a time. This attack is the greater disappointment to me that I have been in such magnificent health this autumn. It cuts me out by a blow from all my plans and works, and leaves me, as it were, a wreck, a waif, — one of the vestiges of crea- tion. But God is faithful, and I know there is goodness somewhere in his dealing, — preparing, probablj'-, some lesson of grace for me of which I stand in special need. The great- est struggle I have suffered has been over my lectures on Su- pernaturalism, not yet prepared for the press, and requiring, in fact, to be almost wholly rewritten. I made up my mind very soon that, if I must go, I would sit directly down to this work, and put it in some passable shape, if it cost me a whole year of shortening in the lease of my life. God bless you, my dear brother, and make you faithful. We shall always rejoice to see you. Yours ever, II. Busiixell. 346 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. The present of a rich afglian, the handiwork of a vener- ated friend, was thus acknowledged : — My dear Mrs. E , — I shrink from trying to tell you how much, and how, I am affected by your most beautiful present. There is so much of your assiduity, care, patience, study, and art in it, with, I doubt not, as much of love, that it looks " all beautiful within," as well as in its stripes and colors ; and I shall put it on or over, as a web of dear recollec- tions, to w\arm my heart in it, and if that be warm enough, the body, they say, never chills. May all God's richest, dearest blessings crowed upon you, my dear friend, to give you j^eace and brighten the sunshine in which you have always known how to live. With tenderest affection, I am yours, H. B. LETTER FliOM NEW YORK. 347 CHAPTER XVII. 1855. LETTERS FROM NEW YORK, CUBA, SAVANNAH, CHARLESTON, AND HARTFORD. Greatly depressed bj the serious break in his health, and not knowing which way to look or how to plan for the fut- ure, he went, for a little rest and change, to Kew York, where he stayed at the house of his brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Samp- son. Thence he wrote to Mrs. Bushnell : — New York, January 16, 1855. I was greatly refreshed by your letter, and the more that I feared I might hear from you in a different strain. How true it is that, wdien God is truly with any one, nothing in the life of nature, or the struggles even of grace, can greatly discompose ! Your text, " Hath ceased from his own labors," etc., I suppose was meant to show me that ceasing from mine, in a little more special sense than ordinary, would not be amiss ; that is, from my manuscripts, plans, undertakings, etc. It is right ; I try to do it, — I say it is done. And yet my heart returns, how easily, to its objects, and here is the subtle spell that binds me revealed. I sometimes try to think that God will have it so ; and then, lest this may be my deceit, I kneel down and make a new surrender, and seem for the time to find rest. Prevailingly, God has been very near me since I have been here, and it is one of my comforts that he is al- ways the nearer, the better health and spirits I am in. Since I began this letter Mr. Sampson came into my chamber with the question, "Which way do you look, whither go, if you try another climate?" and finally coming round very delicately 34S LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. to the proposition that I should go to California at his ex- pense. And, to make the matter as easy as possible, he says, " One talent is given to me, another to you ; and you are not to feel any obligation to me in the premises, but only to let me do a benefit to the public which I owe in this matter, as in others, and which, instead of being a burden, will be a real privilege to me." I cannot but feel the very great kindness of his offer. I feel as much, too, the goodness of God in the friends he brings to me in my adversity. What now shall I do? After some deliberation he decided to try first a shorter trip, and went to Cuba. At Sea, Bahama Banks, January 30, 1855, My deak Wife, — To-morrow morning I shall land at Ha- vana, and I write you directly on by the ship, because you will get my letter in this way quicker than in any other. I write in a shaky boat and upon the tray of my trunk. I hope you will be able to spell me out. We have had a very rough passage, and for the first two days it was fearfully cold. On Friday almost every soul on board was sick, even old seamen. But I stood it out, as usual, went to every table, shaved every morning, and kept on my way. We had a snow-storm in crossing the Gulf Stream ! But Saturday the " south wind blew" soft and balmy,— a breath of foretaste directly from Cuba. The sea fell, and by evening we were sitting on the deck. Sunday was spent there in breathing, — a kind of wor- ship that ought to have been devout, and probably was, — in such a degree as a good deal of lassitude and depression would permit. I feel more and more that I must give up my will and my plans, and I think I more and more rejoice to do it. It is a part of my prayer that God will treat me so as to bring me closest to himself, and most establish me in the health of the soul, so that I may say, " Who is the health of my counte- nance and my God." I think of you and the dear children how often, and with LETTERS FROM CUBA. 349 a longing liow deep ! May our God unite us all in the dear- est bonds of holiness and duty, and, by all his discipline of trial and the separations he calls us to suffer, purify us to a more complete love and fellowship with himself. Cardenas, February 4, 1855. This is Sunday evening, at least by the almanac ; and it is a little more to me than that, I trust, though not more at all for any of the signs around me. I arrived here yesterday from Havana, and a most beautiful day it was, — a new day, also, as regards the world of nature. Think what a day it must be that shows you a new world of vegetation ! Passing througli lux- uriant growths of tree and plant, I saw nothing, all the way, that I could recognize among all the growths, save turnips and Indian-corn. Palms, cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, mangos, cof- fee, cactuses, trees of all colors from wliite to copper -color (which latter stood glistening in the sun like brown adders standing on their tails, and, like them, deadly poisoners), log- wood, mahogany, bamboo-canes, and I know not what beside, — you can hardly imagine anything more strange. The palm itself suffices to make a new landscape ; for it shoots up indigenous, liere and there, in tall pillars of wood some forty to eighty feet high, and throws out on the top its magnificent tuft of feathers, — the body almost white, the top a dark, lux- uriant green of four to eight feathers ten or twelve feet long — making sometimes a forest, sometimes a social neighbor- hood of trees, and sometimes standing solitary. When set in double rows for an avenue up to a planter's house, as it often is, it makes a vista which is truly magnificent. This has been a very strange day to me. I am housed in Madam D 's house, the National Hotel of Cardenas, the best of the place. The said madam is an immense, muscular, fiery virago of* the Scotch order: she presides in the manner of a tempest. My room, which is abundantly dirty, has no carpet, and, like all the other rooms of this island, has no win- dow-glass ; nothing but an immense two-barred shutter. Like all the other sleeping-rooms of the house, it opens on the side of a court, on the back of which is the kitchen. In this court 350 LIFE OF HORACE BUSH NELL. the said madam and her parrot have made quite a day of it. The parrot scolds, calls, laughs, cries, mocks, etc., and the mad- am carries her part with even greater eflSciencj. I have sat by my window and seen her flog three of her servants with a horsewhip, and heard their hideous screams, till I could scarce endure the torment longer. Between the noise without and the dirt within (for I do not believe that the floor of my room has been swept for a week or washed for a year), I concluded, finally, with Cowper, " sighing for a lodge in some vast wilder- ness," to see if I could not find a more congenial place in the fields or woods. And I brought a circuit round the swamp in which the town stands, and sat down on a limestone rock under the bushes, basking in the sun. How different a place from that which God has heretofore given me in the quiet pulpit, among the devout people of God, on a well-kept New England Sabbath ! But God was here, and I had a sermon all to myself, and a prayer. I thought of my blessed home, my dear people, my work that was, and, I hope, is to be, with a better preparation ; and sought especially of God, as the worthiest and truest engagement with you in your worship, that I might be so purified by the fires I am passing through as to finish my work in a worthier and more believing man- ner. I hope the day has been a good one to me, and one whose good will remain. So may it be. February 6. I have just returned this morning from an excursion of a few miles out to the estate of Mr, Forbes. Mr. F. is a friend of Mr. Harris, and is apparently most hearty in asking me to come out and make a stay with him. He is a bachelor, who keeps house by himself, having his steward to superintend. On the estate next adjoining resides Dr. W , of Fishkill. He is said to be an excellent physician, is a very gentleman- ly man, and has an accomplished family. He invites me to visit him, which I shall do without fail. I hope you will feel with me that God is showing me abundant kindness. Tell Mrs. Harris that her sons are indefatigable in their kind- ness. LETTERS FROxM CUBA. 351 Contreras, Feln-uary 18, 1855 Sunday evening, 55. ) You see by the superscription that I am at another land- ing-place, the same that I spoke to you of in my last letter. And here I am so well off, and put so completely at my ease, that I am tempted to change my plan and stay here even till April, if I find that I gain by it, as I begin to feel assured that I do. I have every advantage Iiere that I could ask: a fine sleeping-room and bed, neatness and decenc}^, an atmos- phere of balm, a fine horseback ride every morning, fresh milk, and the vegetable springs of cocoa-nut water, which taste like the springs of life — all manner of fruits, the sugar- cane to suck, the hot sirup to drink, the steam to breathe, and friends who appear to have taken a liking to me, and want to do for me more than I am willing to have them. They even urge my stay, and claim a right to have me till they can send me home in full health. On the whole, ray tide has so turned that I begin to think it will be no wisdom to setoff for Savannah. Nothing makes me doubt but the wretched state of the country, all in agitation— taking posses- sion of steamboats, sending troops hither and thither, mul- tiplying police, enlisting volunteers, and watching night and day for the expected landing of the filibusters. I think it is all a hoax. The agitation began the very day after I landed, but the Xew York papers down to the 9th make no mention of any supposed embarkation. You can hardly imagine anything more desolate than a Sunday here in this island. Little dependent as I am on ex- ternal conditions, I cannot but feel the chill of such heathen- ism. Slavery and slaves; work, work all day and night; no church, no religion visible by any sign but the tithing. How different from the hallowed peace and the almost heavenly riches of our Christian Sabbath ! I go into my room, and get weary with the confinement. I seek the fields and the bam- boo groves, and there is no temple. I return ; I think of my dear home, my deserted pulpit, my dear flock and work, — my heart is there, and not here. Oh, if my body could also for the time be there ! But no ; it is for the body that I am here, 352 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL, and I must take this medicine for the body's sake. I do it cheerfully, and with growing hope or confidence of the result. But my disease is very stubbornly fastened, and will not yield without time. So, then, I consent to the time. Let it be as God wills, and let it be my part to wait until his time shall come. A father's love with many prayers on the heads of the dear children. God bless you and be with you, in the fulness of the promise. Contreras, February 23, 1855. • • • The dear faces of the " Graces Three," how often do I call them up and group them, now about the winter-fire, now at the table, now listening to the breath of music ! Do you know, dears, that I am with you, hanging round the chairs and putting on the wood ? . . . Thus goes on my regular mill of routine, at whose crank I M^ait, turning to make it go, else it would stand entirely still. I have omitted nothing save an occasional expedition into the woods or the bamboo-field to cut a cane. I had six or seven on hand, standing up in the corner of mj^ room j-ester- day, — omen, I suppose, of the number of props it will take to hold me up for the rest of my journey. Contreras, Sunday, March 4, 1855, It is very singular, quite unaccountable, that I do not get any letter yet from you. I never wanted so much to get hold of your thoughts, and see whither you are going, as now. I see no way to walk in, myself, but that of faith ; and if I could feel the touch of your faith, it would be the greatest comfort. I know not what to say of my health. I am some- times greatly discouraged, struggle darkly with my symptoms, half let go of my confidence, return with difiiculty to my ex- pectations, and finally end with yielding myself to the fa- therly sovereignty, falling into it and burying in it all my thoughts, misgivings, cares, and throes. Oh, if I could not go to God and feel that there is a good will at the helm, who will do with me and mine what is best for us, I should sometimes quite break ; but here my breaking is rest, peace, and some- times a new springing confidence that comes out like a gale LETTERS FROM CUBA. 353 of health from Ilim. The weather here has been very try- ing of late. They say that the winter, as with yon, has been one of the coldest ; two days ago it was to the senses like a coldest November chill, though the thermometer did not fall below about 54°. I observe that almost all the nem-oes are coughing, with a deep hollow note, as if they were in the ad- vanced stages of consumption. In such a case, it is not won- derful, I suppose, that I seem to make no advance. I begin to think now that nothing will cure me but faith, a bath in the supernatural and healing grace of Christ, an inhalation of the Divine Spirit and his new-creating power. I see by the papers that you have had a dreadfully cold winter. But you have cold with a fire ; we, less cold with none. To-day I have been sleeping, or taking my nap, on the bed with an open window, — a beautiful summer's day. So we have it a good part of the time, which makes it seem a whole half year since I left you; but the "north comes down" next day "with his airy forces," and the snow-skirt of your winter seems to be spread over us. I used to think that Job had seen some terrible cold weather when he wrote, " Who can stand before his cold ?" but I think now that he had tasted cold in a more nearly tropical climate, — that the subtle, back-handed, creep- ing cold, that knew how to steal through seeming warmth and touch him with a chill, what way he could not see, — that this set him shivering, and then he sung through chattering teeth, " Who can stand," etc. I can't tell you, dear all — L., M,, D., yes, and Jane* too — how much I want to see you. If I could see Jane's face through a crack of the door, it would shine like a good an- gel's. As to the angels, we have not any here, at any rate no home angels, for that is the kind I most want to see. Ever your husband, II. B. Contreras, Sunday, March 11, 1855. My very dear Daughter, — I shall not get your letter till I reach Havana on my way home, which will either be on the * A faithful servant. 354 LIFE OF IIOKACE BUSIINELL. 22d iiist. or the lOtli proximo, — a question yet to be de- cided. Welcome be the day, whether it is going home to hve or to die. I ought not to conceal it from my friends, least of all from my family, that I encounter some discouragements and some- times am pressed with sore struggles. When my prospect of living is darkened in this manner, I need not tell you how fondly, or with what tender clinging, I remember my dear family, and how these form images that are painted in the inmost chamber of my heart, and rise to the brain, claiming to possess even that as their exclusive right. True, I have other friends in the world whom I most fondly love; but these four, God bless them, do none the less appear to cir- cumscribe my love and claim it all. When I think of leaving the world, these meet me as my charge, my care, and I long to know what is to befall then]. It is a great comfort, in all such struggles, that I can hope for them as being heirs with me of Christ and his salvation. . . . God bless you, my dear daughter, and keep you in that way of holy duty and discipline where your graces will brightest shine, the river of your peace most calmly flow. Written not without some tears of fatherly tenderness. Horace Bushxell. To the North Church of Hartford. Cuba, April 3, 1855. My dear Brethren, — I have had it in my heart to write you for these many weeks, but have been delayed by the hope that I might soon be able to write you in terms of en- couragement as regards my speedy return and the resump- tion of my duties; for I well understood that the mere omis- sion to speak in that kind of coniidence would be taken as a sign that I am losing ground, and that my return to my work is growing doubtful. I can wait no longer, and, indeed, I ought not. But I will tell you frankly that I am sorely baf- fled as regards my recovery. In some respects I have greatly improved. Indeed, I have been able to rise above my ordina- ry pitch in the external indications of a robust and healthy LETTER TO HIS CHURCH. 355 state. Bat as regards the particular local affection by which I was disabled, I cannot say that at any time I have made the least advance in a way of convalescence. On the contrary, for the last fortnight I have certainly lost ground. I have no physician at hand w^hose judgment I may take, and I am very likely, as you will readily understand, to misjudge my own symptoms ; but I am bound to tell you that I see no pros- pect of being able, as I hoped, to resume my work by the first of May ; and when I say this, I cannot be blind to the fact that my prospect of ever doing it is diminished. My diffi- culty is one, as you well know, that may easily take a serious turn, and walks in darkness in a way that cannot be traced till its end is accomplished. I can, therefore, only cast myself on the care of our common Father, and let him turn it as he will. How great a struggle it costs me to write in this doubt- ful way, concerning the work of my life and the charge that for so long a time has been the burden of my affections and my prayers, I cannot tell you. This work I long to resume, for I should hope to perform it more faithfully than I have done hitherto. I have also things on hand to do, in regard to the interests of Christian truth, which it is a great trial to leave undone. But I must bow myself to God, who loves my W'Ork better than I do, and sees, it may be, a want of capacity in me for it, which perhaps I do not. Let him determine for us, and it shall be M'ell. Meantime, let me ask your prayers that God will prepare both you and me for the results which his Providence will bring, and which hitherto are concealed from our view ; not forgetting, also, that power of interces- sion for the things we want, which finds so large a space in the terms of Providence. It grieves me to hear that some of you have drunk so deep- ly the cup of affliction. May you drink as deeply of the con- solations and comforts of God ! I hear also, with great joy, of your exertions in my absence to maintain the attendance and the interest of your evening exercises. I have great con- fidence in you, dear brethren, that you do and will do any- thing that is needful, in a way of sacrifice, to maintain the spirit of prayer and of unity in holy things. I believe that 356 LIFE OF IIOEACE BUSHNELL. you love one another-, and are bound together in the same cause. In this confidence I greatly rejoice. May it never fail, and to that end may the grace of God be ever with you, and the Spirit of Christ rest upon you ! Your pastor, H. Bushnell. Savannah, April 13, 1855, Mt deak Child — (that is, if Young America will put up with such kind of address),— I reached here last evening in safety, and found a good feast of letters waiting for me, one of which was my first from you. I thank you for it, and should have been glad enough to answer it long ago, for I knew it was here waiting for me. I have seen a good many curious things in Cuba— such as churches without religion, laws without protection, courts without justice, and children without clothes ; but the most curious thing of all, which has been my study every morning in my rides, I will describe to you. It is the yaguey-tree. It is unlike all other trees, in the fact that it begins to grow at the top. And how do you think that is ? I will tell you. First, the seed of the tree is dropped by the birds, or lodged by the winds, in the moist branching place of other trees, sometimes ten, sometimes fifty feet from the ground. There it quickens, takes root, and be- o-ins to grow, sending out its branches like another tree, and spinning a kind of vinous root along down the body of the tree occupied. At length these vines or rootlings strike the ground and take root in it, and then a growth immediately commences upward in a reverse order. Now it will be seen that the growths upward and downward, crossing and weav- ing one with another, knit together at every cross, and show you one tree growing as a net, with another tree inside. The outside tree, as the parts of it swell, hugs the inside like a huge girdle of anacondas, causes it to protrude at the vacant spaces as if going to burst, and finally kills it, becoming itself tlie tree. Sometimes the body shows how it was made by a hollow inside, and vacant spaces or patches where the light shines through; and sometimes it looks quite smooth and solid, except that near the ground, even when the tree is six HOME LETTEES. 357 or eight feet in diameter, it straddles out into a hundred legs, all separate, looking like a tree that is set top downward by mistake. I have seen one through which I might drive a coach. Now for the moral ; for there is a moral, you know, in trees. There is a class of men that you may call the yaguey-men, who get their roots and take on all their signs of growth by fastening on the top of other men. Never able to have stood up alone, they take on the airs of strength and seem to be great. But, though they try to hide the merit of the victim by whose opinions and character they are supported, still you can always see, by their patchwork look and the vacant spaces where the light shines through, that they are not solid. And as the yaguey is a tree absolutely good for nothing as re- gards the practical uses of timber and fire, so these parasites and thieves of merit are sure in the end to find as little honor as they deserve. So much for the yaguey, which has been about the only study of my Cuban life. . . . God bless you, my dear one. How I long to see your face ! Your Father. Savannah, April 14, 1855. My dearest "Wife, — This is the fourteenth day of April, the anniversary of that day when a godly mother, now among the glorified, with a mother's pangs brought her first-born into the world, even me, her nnworthy son, who have now finished fifty-three years of the short lease of my life. Shall I ever see another birthday, or is this the last? I have been asking the question, as a question that to me has real mean- ing, and not a question that respects the possible only, as heretofore. I will not say that I do not expect to live. I even hope to live many years, though I am not very confident that I shall ever be a well man again. Be that as it may, I do earnestly long and timidly hope that I may somehow be able to add a closing part to my life which will be better than the part already fulfilled, and more significant as a con- tribution to the truth of Christ and the power of his Gospel ; which if I do, what can it be but that my thinking, discern- 358 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. ing, understanding life is concluded and consummated by a discovery of the way and power of faith ! I was greatly interested by what you say of this subject in your letters, and have occupied myself this morning in noting down a few of the reasons that go to raise or justify a new confidence in this matter of faith, or rather to restore an old coniidence such as prophets and apostles have held : though, coming up again after an age of reason, and a submerging of Christian piety under the terms of reason, it will, in fact, be new, having a new character and filling a new office in the world, as respects the standing of revelation and the final tri- umph of the Christian truth. I will give you the notes I have made, only requesting that you will keep them to your- self, for I am not yet ripe : — 1. We should most naturally expect that God would not hide himself from his creatures. He loves them, invites their love to him, asks them to be in terms of friendship with him. And what is this but to say that he will hear, communicate, be open to and receive their desires, doing for and with them as friends do, because they are friends. The infidels have said, " If there be a God, why does he not show himself? Is there anytliing so important for man to know as God ? Why, then, is this kept so ambiguous and dark, wlien other tilings are clear?" And are they not right, — that is, right so far as they assume the certainty that a living God will show him- self the living God ? . . . 5. There is nothing in the world of laws to discourage such a confidence. Laws are the alphabet of our knowledge on the footing of nature. So far, God will show us his way and con- duct us into his will. Then, when we come up into the high- er platform of faith, what is indicated but that he will open to us higher tiers of knowledge, as he is now able, and make us powers in a higher range of efficacy ? Laws are not, there- fore, broken up by the specialties of faith, but are onl}^ tran- scended. Or rather we may say that we are now exploring and searching out the higher laws of God, even those of his personal society and goodness. 6. The want of religion now is, plainly, the restoration of LETTERS. 359 faith, or the open state between the Church and God. We need to see the possibility of revehition or its credibility in the present living fact. We are trying, and liave been for centuries, to hold Christianity np in the lap of logic, reason, science, and the natural understanding, and the poor thing dwindles, — inconsequent, impotent, a shadow that has lost out the substance. The question now is whether it can live. Can arguments, replies, ingenuities, make it live ? I see not how. 7. There is nothing new in the dangers of such a doctrine. True, there can be visionaries, enthusiasts, fanatics, and all manner of delusion. So there could be, and were, in the former times. There were false prophets, lying miracles, dreamers of dreams. There is only more security or safe- guard in the rational and sceptical habit of our times than there ever was before. And, besides, there never could be a time when a want of modesty, a shallow presumption or con- ceit, would not bring its penalties ; and it is really no merit of any scheme of truth that it keeps off the danger of follj^, and saves the course of passion from extravagance. It may even be the fault of that rational, negative doctrine which assumes to keep all safe, that it undertakes to make a blind state as good and wholesome, in the show, as any. These things I have noted on the side positive, and I feel that they make a very strong case. No one, it seems to me, can run the mind through such a review without feeling that the thing most natural to be lield is the possibility of a foot- ing of faith in our times, much like that of tlie apostles. So, we should say, it ought to be. Christianity appears to be ad- journed, when we say tliat so it cannot be. Perhaps tliere are qualifications to be added ; and yet I cannot but feel that the true light of the future is here, and that the Church of the future is to be born in the birth of this faith. Oli that God would teach us, and prepare us, and use us, in what way it may best please him, for the inauguration of such a day of faith ! I think I am willing to be used in this manner, and long to be furnished for a part so honorable and so dear to God. Breathe upon us, O Spirit of life, on this day so full of 24 SCO LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. sacred influence, and tempered by so tender and serious fore- cast, and turn us into that true way of faitli in which our life, so doubtfully useful, may be so certainly raised to a crown. . . . Pardon this long, heavy letter, and may it give to you what it has taken out of my back. Ever yours, and still forever, H. BusimELL. To Mr. Thomas WinsM]). Savannah, April 18, 1855. My dear Brother in Christ, — I thank you most heartily for the two letters I found here from you. It is a great re- freshment to hear an old friend and brother speak once more a word of fellowship. Until the last Sunday, I have been, as it were, a heathen, oi", at least, among heathen, since I left the warm and loving circle of prayer in the old North Church. I found a young convert, from the State of Maine, on the plantation where I stayed ; and with this young cooper I con- spired (a most dangerous conspiracy, if it were known) to make out something in the nature of a Sunday worship. We went out to the remote woods, and there we kneeled down, each in turn, to pray. Sometimes I gave a paraphrase of some chapter, like the 139th Psalm, and he, comprising in himself the organ and all the parts of the music, — for I had too little voice to help him much, — sung a song, as by the willows in a strange land. I need not tell you for whom we prayed, or for what. Suffice it to say, that we forgot nothing which we loved, or that we could think of as dear to Christ. It was good ; it put us out of heathenism into the circle of the true worship of heaven and earth. Our hearts burnt togeth- er, for we understood each other ; and when we parted, we parted as they that have refreshed and blessed each other in a dark and godless land. I am rejoiced to hear that the brethren have been faithful to sustain each other, and keep bright the hoi}'' chain of fel- lowship. Nothing is a greater comfort than to hear well of you in my absence. " For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord." Go on, and may the living fire of the Spirit for- LETTERS. 361 ever abide witli you, making you steadfast, and faithful, and joyful in the Lord. I am also glad to hear that T and his young friend are at work : the more they do, the more they can ; the stronger their confidence, the deeper their peace ; with the certainty that their labor will not be in vain in the Lord. Eemember me most tenderly to your family and to all inquiring friends. Very truly yours in the bonds of Christ, 11. B. Cbarleston, April 21, 1855. My evek deak Wife, — I wrote you a long letter, just a week ago, on the state of faith and its power as pertaining to a real Christian experience. Let me now add some quali- fications, such as Scripture and my own reflections have sug- gested. It may be a great omission not to distinguish the state of faith, as a state spiritually renewed, supernaturally enlight- ened, adopted, witnessed, from a state miraculously empow- ered. . . . We have it clearly made out that there is, and is always to be, an inspired, in the sense of a spirit -led state, where the secret of the Lord will be in the soul, and Christ manifested as its light. This, of course, in so far as the sub- ject will let the light come unobstructed, which it may re- quire a good deal of refinement and a very chastened state of purity to do ; and, therefore, the inspiration will come to maturity slowly, and the secret of God be attained to late, and after some mistakes. . . . The great fault of denial or falling off from Christian truth appears, on the whole, to be in the absolute denial of inspiration, or the assumed limita- tion of it, now, to a less marked and lower type of experi- ence. There is no evidence whatever that we are required to be less inspired, or in a lower sense, or that we are farther shut away from God and the Word of the Lord, than they were in former ages. Different things are to be done, and God will inspire us for just what we have to do ; and it may be that our inspiration, being for a riper age, will, so far, be of a higher quality. Only, be it never forgotten that the 362 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. inspired state is a chastened state ; tliat hasty utterances may be rash and presumptuons ; and that God will often do the best thing for our real progress when he lets us venture on vaticinations in which we mix our selfishness, and turn our wishes or our vanities into oracles. It will be easy, at all times, to reason ourselves into confidences that are not from God — not inspired ; or we may take up in subtlety by our %Dill what we think we are taught of God. Ajyril 29. — Thus far I had written at date, but did not complete and send the letter, because I hoped you would not be at home to read it. But your letter, received yesterday, extinguished that hope. I was a little disappointed, for I had allowed myself to count on a great advantage to you, as well as 23leasure to myself, in having you with me. I am happy to tell you that I have gained a great deal since I came. For the first two or three days I was worse than I had been at any time since I left home. How I am going to take up my charge and go on with my full work, — how" and when, — there is the question. I seem to tire easily, and the " perdurable toughness " is gone. ... 1 shall be at home prob- ably in the beginning of the third week in May. Joyful be the day ! . . . To Br. Bartol. Hartford, June 7, 1855. My dear Feiend, — I have been meaning, every day since my return from Cuba, about three weeks ago, to write you and let you know of my state, prospects, etc. I wish I could tell you something better than is permitted me. I have many good symptoms, and seem in some points to be im- proved, but the physicians shake their heads over me. They do not tell me that I am beyond hope of recovery, but seem rather to cherish the confidence that I will recover — that is, by-and-by, ultimately, in some remote period of the world. I need not tell you that I have to encounter some heavy strug- gles of feeling, as I beat off and on this lee-shore of life. In particular, it costs me a great trial to let go, if I must, before I have done that which I have been regarding as the main work and principal meaning of my life. But I try to console LETTERS. 3G3 myself in the conviction of my own folly, and that God, who knows me better than I do myself, prefers to get me off be- fore I have done the mischief I wonld. Our friend Bellows, whom I saw and dined with on my way to Cuba, told me quite frankly that he, and I think you also, were unable to look on my letter of reconciliation with Dr. Ilawes as being less than a recantation. This quite sur- prised me, for Hawes himself looks upon it in no such man- ner, and all the notices I have seen from my orthodox friends, — I don't say my orthodox enemies, — have said plainly that my letter is no recantation, or in anywise different from the published sentiments of my books. I think you have fallen into this error by not attending as closely as you might to certain references, and taking Hawes's construction of some things, where he goes beyond them. At any rate, if I am now to pass to my account, it will be in a spirit of most hearty thanks to God that I have been permitted to say to the world (abating some obscurities and defects, it may be, of manner) just what I have. I could not die in confidence if I did not stand fast in my testimony, so deep is my convic- tion that I have spoken the truth. Do not understand from this that I am certainly giving up the hope of life. On the contrary, I rather expect to get well. H. BUSHNELL. To the Same. Hartford, December 2G, 1855. My dear Friend, — I should have acknowledged your book sooner if I had not made my acknowledgments as one of the great public beforehand. I have read it with great interest, both for your sake and for the book's sake. It was a little diverting that I opened directly upon the page or pages where you shoot at me, and that without hitting, for if you had hit me it would have been as little diverting as possible. Some- body has given you a wrong account of my sermon on " The Dignity of Human ]!*s^ature, shown by the E-uin it makes."* * The title of the sermon when published was changed, to prevent misconstruction, to another form, viz., " Dignity of Human Nature, shown from its Kuius." 364 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. The idea was not bj the ruin it causes, but by that of which it affords the material, as where we speak of the ruin Thebes makes. I see, too, that you alkide to my Dudleian Lecture. Well, I am getting ready to publish, and then we shall see — what we shall see. AVho knows but that we shall some time be involved in a great controversy! One thing I am sure of, if we do, that we shall be the best-natured fighters that have been seen for a long time. Meantime, accept my hearty thanks for your refreshing and beautiful volume. The good parts hit me I can testify, if the had did not. If I should publish in Boston, I may come on to make ar- rangements by-and-by, though I have not yet decided to pub- lish now. I only acknowledge, for the present, that God has heard my many prayers and granted me the respite I asked for, long enough to prepare this volume. The work is now very nearly done, that is, after a fashion. I am still an inva- lid. I have not preached at all. I think I shall be off at the break of winter f*or some drier climate. With my best regards to yours, I am, as ever, yours my- self, HOKACE.BUSHNELL. CALIFORNIA. 365 CHAPTEK XYIII. 1856. CALIFORNIA. Between "loafing" and "writing a little nonsense," the year of 1855 wore away. The summer, spent among the hills, in the pure air of his native Connecticut, seems to have done more for his health than the more languid air of the South had accomplished. There was a gradual improve- ment— a sense of being on the up grade ; and with this hope- ful consciousness, he was able to do some work upon his long- studied lectures on the " Supernatural." Early in 1856 his mind was made up to try California ; and in February, short- ly before his departure, he wrote to his friend Mr. Chese- brough, " I have been able this winter, for which I am great- ly thankful, so far to revise and arrange my ' Supernatural- ism' that it cannot be lost. In this I have a great load thrown off my shoulders. How many strong prayers, — or weak, shall I say ? — have I sent up to God, begging for a respite in my disease long enough to allow me to linish this work I I have been heard, and my thanks are a joyons offering for the gift." To Dr. Bartol. Hartford, February 29, 1856. My deae Feiend, — That I may not seem to have eloped, I must let you know that I am off for California on the 5tli of March, Oh how I wish I could have your company ! What a luxury even that world of barbarisms would be ! I have been gaining slowly this winter, but must try to be a little better established before I go to my work. I shall stay in California eight months or a year. Meantime, my " Super- naturalism " must sleep. I expect to return well. But, alas ! 366 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. bow little do I know that I may ever return at all ! But I go in good spirits and full of hope. May our good Father be with you and yours. I always remember you with a peculiar interest, and think of you with appetite ; not to devour, but to see, and receive, and dis- charge my folly at you, in the freedom of my trust. When I return, I must see you, and will. Until then, my heart is with you. Yours truly, Horace Bushnell. Extracts from Letters luritten in California. San Francisco, March 31, 1856. Here then, at last, I am, with a continent between me and all I hold dear on earth. I arrived on Friday morning, — less than twenty-three days from New York. The voyage was tranquil even to excess, and healthy ; which, considering the multitudes crowded in the ship, was a special subject of thanksgiving. I need hardly tell you that I am not as well as when I left home ; for such a voyage must, of course, re- sult in some damage. I weigh, however, just what I did. . . . I have been much alone, as regards men, on the way, but I have not been solitary. The day and the night have been full of God, and with him I have both waked and slept. What he is doing with us and for us I know not, but I am sure that his counsel is good, and will be approved by us both. Marysville, April 3, 1856. I have been here now two days, attending the two Conven- tions of the Presbyterian and Congregational ministers; also their joint meetings and exercises. I have partly agreed to stay here over Sunday, and assist in the installation of Rev. Mr. Walsworth, with whom I am staying, and whom I like mightily. They have an excellent body of ministers here, and I like them very much,— fine-spirited, talented, and gen- erally accomplished men. It has been a real satisfaction to me to find how much of real promise there is in them. The two bodies that meet here now contain about thirty, and their number is all the while increasing. They come together from LETTER TO THE NORTH CHURCH. 367 points three hundred miles apart, and some of them liave not seen the face of a co-hxborer for nearly a year. I am greatly pleased with this country in the matter of natural scenery. The sail up the San Pablo and Suisun bays, and the straits that connect them, in the decline of the after- noon and towards sunset, with the light streaming down the sides of the green mountains, was magically beautiful. The mountains here are very peculiar. They have generally no trees at all, but are covered with wild-oats to the summit ; and yet their outline is even metallically sharp, and the shad- ows, cast by their inequalities and gulches and peaks and ra- vines, are deeper and more definite than you will ever see in mountains covered with trees. . . . I rode out yesterday on horseback with Miss O . We took the vast plain north of the city, wide, and clear of all obstruction, literally covered with flowers, under a beautiful warm sun, — the Buttes, a trap-range most fantastically carved on one side, and the snow-capped Xevadas on the other, stretching off north and west for a full hundred miles, — and it was the liveliest gallop that I ever enjoyed. To the North Church in Hartford. Nevada, April 14,1856. Mt deae Brethren, — The breadth of a continent between us does not separate rae from you. Still I am with you, long- ing after you, mingling with your prayers, watching in the Lord, if not with the actual vision of my eyes, for your growth in holiness and fruitfulness of life. It is my comfort that I can have a reasonable confidence, in respect to so many of your number, that you have been truly taught of God. I only fear that you may still consent to live on too low a scale, and surrender yourselves too easily to the spirit and power of this world. It is a great evil of our times that we are so ready to compare ourselves with one another, and not with the apostolic privileges and standards. Living reputably we consider to be Christian living ; or, at least. Christian enougli to answer our purpose. And yet how certainly do you all know that being at one with God in his standards, walking 368 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. by his light, feeding on his promises, is the only real joy and rest of the soul. Why, then, do you ever consent to anything different, or to any lower and more human standard ? Or if you say that you do not consent to it, but fall into it by the unconscious gravity of your corrupted and treacherous nature, then why do you fall into it? Is not Christ strong enough to keep you ? Has he not engaged to keep you if you trust him ? This, my brethren, he will certainly do for you, and more : he will keep you rising, growing fresh and clear, and binding you ever to himself with a dearer and more con- scious affinity. I speak in this manner to you, my brethren, not because I have any special reason to distrust you, but because I am jealous with a godly jealousy. I long after you all, even the more heavily that I am separated from you. And I present you to God in my prayers day and night, — not that he will save you from any public shame or defection, as being worse than others, but that he will take you away from this present evil world, as I fear that you are not yet taken away. I pray that God will make you faithful to him, as you have been faithful to me ; and give you to know that height, and breadth, and length, and depth which can be known only by those who are bathing in the boundless flood and fulness of a per- fect love. Come out of the world into this divine love, and here abide ; loving one another as Christ hath loved you, and watching for one another according to your love. Instead of comparing yourselves with one another, and with other disci- ples, take your beginning at Christ, and be what he will have you to be. As I am absent, let your responsibilities be ex- tended by accepting my charge, in part, upon yourselves. I hope I may yet be restored to you, and to my delightful work among you. Until then, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Horace Bushnell. Nevada, April 15, 1856. This region where I am is a new and strange scene. There is scarcely a level spot anywhere to be found, — hills and hills, gulfs and gulfs ; every hill a stair on the ladder of the great NEVADA. 369 Nevada, every gulf a deeper cut as the Nevada is neared. We are now about forty miles from the snowy summit, and over two thousand feet above the sea. The hills of the whole region are auriferous ; the soil is poor, and yet they are covered with soil, — scarcely a rock breaks out to sharpen the universal rounding of the surfaces. At this time they are freshened by green growths and flowers, and have in many places the show of a beautiful park ; for though there is no cultivation, the trees generally, especially where the oak prevails, are not crowded, and there is no undergrowth of shrubs and vines. This leaves the surfaces beautifully clean. Where the pine prevails, as about this town, it is more like a pine-scenery, — a universal peering at the sky of innumerable cones. I paced a common, ordinary one this morning, that fell in my way, and which had just been cut down, which measured two hundred and ten feet. Many of them are very much higher. Mr. K told me that he had felled one that measured three hundred and fifty feet, and that sometimes they are found as high as four hundred. But when you have described the flaccid, rounding surfaces and lines of nature, you have done nothing ; nature is gone, or is rapidly going, never to return. The sides of almost every hill are gashed and torn, covered with rocks laid bare, and fresh earth of all colors — red, white, and yellow. You could not imagine such devastation as a possible thing to be made in seven years by all the diggers of the world. They go up the rivers ten, fifteen, thirty miles, turn the waters out in ditches, carry them on along the sides of the hills and mountains five hundred or a thousand feet above the valleys, show them me- andering around, overhead, underfoot, and criss-cross every- where, and let them out by measure to the washers. These take them and play into the sides of the steep hills with an immense hose, like that of a fire-engine, with a fall of one hundred feet or more, and tear the hills all to pieces. Here and there, and indeed everywhere, will be an acre, or five acres, all carried off to the depth of eighty or ninety feet. The earth is carried off in wooden sluices that catch the gold ; and, with the earth, pour along the stones, thumping and rat- 370 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. tling, till they reach the rivers. Those they are filling up, so that shortly they will run in broad plains of sand and stone. I have been down to a mill to-day on the river, where the river has been filled up thirty-five feet. This country will shortly be nothing but an immense scarification — a desert of rocks, sand-piles, pits, and tunnels. As to health, I don't know what to say. The weather is nothing but water a good part of the time. When it comes a fair day I seem to be better, and therefore hope, but my cough is bad enough. Sometimes I am a little depressed, but generally hopeful and happy. I find the best friends, who are ready to do me any favor. Mr. H and his wife are plain people, but I like them mightily, they have so much heart, and are so free. But my Heavenly Friend is closest of all, and my peace is like a river. I think it has never flowed with a deeper current, and yet I am straining nothing. I only try to keep myself in the open state by just holding an exact and steady practice. I am content to go if God requires me, and yet I have never so much wished to stay. San Francisco, April 21, 1856. This country is most emphatically a new world. Every- thing is new and strange. There is no such thing as grass, and yet at this time tlie wdiole surface is an immense carpet of flowers, not rank and high, — save here and there a few wild larkspurs and a field of escolzias (spell it as you can), — but deli- cate, minute, modest, sprinkled as drops in a shower of beau- ty. The climate is not a climate, but climates by the dozen. Three days ago I sat on a high mountain-spur on the Yuba, looking across an immense chasm full into the snows of the Sierra Kevada twenty miles off, in a warm sun and a soft, re- freshing breeze. Two days after, I was walking the streets of Marysville in the afternoon, in a sweltering heat. Yes- terday I came down by steamer, wearing my heavy winter coat all the way. The soil in the immense broad plain of the valley is generally rich, without a tree or a shrub. The soil of the hills and mining region is poor, yet covered with immense trees two and three hundred feet high. And yet, LETTERS FROM SAN FRANCISCO. 371 with all the growths of ^wood, there is no wood, in the whole extent of the State, that can be called hard timber, such as would be fit to make a wagon of, — it is all brittle or spalt ; or, as they say here, hrash. What does this signify ? If the immense oaks that grow here and there have scarcely strength enough to stand alone, what does it signify as re- gards the future men ? Will there be any better stuff in them ? . . . To a Daughter'. It does not appear that you expect anything in particular to be replied to in your letter, unless it is to have your ears boxed for your laugh about the dear stiff-necked beast and her rider. Ah, Bessie, little does the world know how it stands between us ; and when we meet, what a friendly greet- ing it will be! Only do not wink with your two ears, lest it should frighten our common friend, the dear lady of the buggy. The features of the country are very grand and beautiful. The hills in this region and to the south are covered now with wild-oats, just in their glory, green as they can be ; seen in the distance, with' the sun streaming down their sides, all the hollows in shadow, and the high places brilliant as gems, you can almost hear the music of the light, as if it were a hymn. Strawberries are now beginning to ripen, and I saw new potatoes in the street this morning. In short, everything natural is so peculiar that one is lost. There are no seasons here, such as I ever saw or heard of before. While the ther- mometer at Sacramento runs as high as 110° and 120° in the summer, a good deal of the time, they say that they really suffer less than we do, because of the cool nights. In the mean time they really suffer more at this point (San Francisco) from raw weather in the summer than in the winter. The seasons are inverted. Society, I need hardly say, is quite as strange as anything else. I am going over, day after to-mor- row, to visit Mr. Durant ;* and then, after a day or two, I am going down to Mr. Beard's, at the San Jose Mission. I have * His old frieucl and classmate. 372 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. just heard that he will take me, and invites me to come. This will be mj new home ; that is, home without home. San Jose Mission, Ai)nl 28, 1856. I have just come in from mj first morning ride in this place, and sit down to give you my impressions while they are fresh. This is Monday. I came down, or rather up, as they say, from Oakland on Saturday, riding through tlie rich- est garden of the creation almost all the way. I never saw the like. Fields of wheat and barley two or three miles across, and such a growth ! I was very cordially received by Mr. and Mrs. Beard, as I expected to be. Mrs. Beard is one of the finest and most interesting of women : sensible, easy, simple as a child, and practical as one of the out-door characters who has seen all sides of the world, the rough and the elegant, and meets them all with a welcome. Their house is one of the old adobe structures, walls four feet thick, built by the monks on three sides of a square of about two hundred .feet on the sides. It is only one story high, and one room wide, with a piazza all round, covered much of the way with vines. The connections between the rooms are mostly on the outside, from the piazza, which is the hall universal. It was something new to come into a vast garden filled with old full-grown pear-trees laden with fruit, and myriads of peach-trees loaded to the ground, and hoary olives, and all these filled with singing-birds in a perpetual chorus of mu- sic. I had seen before no civilized tree, and, strange to say, had scarcely heard the song of a bird at all. Indeed, I began to doubt whether any bird could sing in California. I need hardly say that I feel greatly at home here, and mean, as things now look, to be fastened here, as to my centre of mo- tion ; which, perhaps, is as near the idea of home as I shall get. Now for the ride. I turned into the hills, a little way north of the house, and wound my way along at an easy gal- lop up through the Stockton Pass. I felt w^ell, — better than I have at any time since I reached California, having been upon the gain almost steadily since the last rain, a week before I left Nevada. The air w^as fresh and bracing; cool enough STOCKTON PASS. 373 to wear an overcoat. The clouds were flying in squadrons, and the shadows chasing across the landscape to give it life. As to the hills, nothing I have seen could match them, or help me, by comparison, to describe them. They are steep enongh to hang almost over your head, rounded into piles of graceful beauty, showing scarcely ever a rock or a stone, and never a tree, except in the gorges where they meet, and where the springs and rivulets flow down. Their covering is the intensest meadow-green, save that often the flowers are so profuse in spots that the green is covered. There the light streaming down their sides, set off by the shadows of the clouds, makes them fairly laugh. Indeed, you are like enough to be listening to hear them laugh aloud. I never saw such combinations — so lively, and fresh, and gladsome, and withal sublime. After passing the pass, which I believe is good English, and is a self-evident possibility, I began to catch glimpses and vistas reaching down into a wide plain or val- ley ; and seeing a rounded summit at the right of the road which promised to give me a fine view, I galloped my horse up to the top (it was only a green melon one hundred feet high), and there I think I saw the most exquisitely beautiful sight that ever ray eyes beheld. Away to the south-east was another valley or pass, — through which, evidently, one might climb into the upper world, — with a high mountain, whose top was hid in the clouds, on the east. Korth, west, everywhere, green hills pitching about and about, enclosing the plain ; ir- regular slopes before, and a travelled road winding round and round, and showing itself far down at many turns ; a river meandering through the plain ; no fence, no house, no other sign of man but the road anywhere visible ; and the flowers smiling in their silent beauty before God, and breathing out their incense to him. Oh, it was the nearest thing to a gar- den of Eden actually extant that I ever saw. After I had reached the plain, I saw far off, in the south part of it, an im- mense herd of cattle, horsemen galloping through it, dust flying; and I rode down to make out what it was. They were the native California herdsmen, who had gotten all the cattle of an immense range of country together, and were 374 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. sorting them, each one getthig his own by themselves ; or, rather, for the present, one getting his by themselves. Twen- ty men were in the work ; some doing it, and some seeing that it was fairly done, or according to the marks. All are on horseback, all in motion. The owner rides round, wheel- ing through the immense herd, and, finding his mark, takes after the bearer, chasing it out. Another rides after, a little on the other side. Getting the animal out, half a dozen oth- er men wheel in to head the animal off into the little drove gathering a quarter of a mile off. But the animal wheels, it may be, and plunges to run by, and then they are after it with the lasso. There it goes! — spinning round in the air; it settles on his horns, and is drawn tight by the jerk of his whole momentum. Now he pitches at the lasso-man and his horse ; and another lasso flies, and another, and, before he knows it, he is held fast by their lines, and can't go any way. Giving him a little play so that he can run, another is after him, and behold ! he is caught also by the leg and jerked flat down. Poor fellow ! he is caught like a fly in a spider's web. His courage is broken ; they let him loose, and he goes where they will have him. The next thing, we see an immense bull rushing out, and two horsemen after him. They have a tight run to catch him; finally, one comes up and seizes him by the tail with his hand, lets him draw awhile, then spurs his horse suddenly sideways, and behold ! the old fellow is flat on his side in an instant. Such horsemanship I never saw. To them it was work, but to me it was the most exhilarating show. • San Josg Mission, May 3, 1856. ... I continue to be pleased with my new Western home. I could not be more comfortably fixed, away from my true home. I spoke of Mrs. Beard. I am also greatly pleased with Mr. Beard. He is one of the noblest native characters I have ever seen. He had bought a property here of the Mission, seven or eight miles square, the very richest land of the world ; he had fenced it at an expense of over one hun- dred thousand dollars. But the squatters came on, went di- rectly into his fields, took possession and built houses ; threw THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE. 375 him out of the income from the Land, l\y wliich he was to pay his debt, and left liim to be eaten uj) by the taxes and liis inter- est-money ; so that, while he was gettinji; his title established, he was absolutely i-uined. And just now his principal creditor is with him, selling out his land to the squatters, now that the title is gained, in a hope of merely squaring the debt. Still, he never speaks resentfully ; meets the fellows with kindness ; does them, one and. all, any favor he can ; and shows a big human heart, full of trust, and public spirit, and personal beneficence, as if they had done him nothing but good. I am very glad to hear yon speak so encouragingly of our prayer-meeting. May the smile of God be upon you there, as I think it certainly will. I have many sweet hours of thought and private communion, and seem to be growing- easy, if I may so speak, in the divine presence. God is never afar off, to be hunted for and struggled after. I forget wdiether I have before spoken of it, but I have been greatly refreshed and blessed, once and again, by reading over, as a mere practical exercise, the Epistle to the Romans. I never before could fully and even rationally enter, as now, into the Apostle's deep and gloriously magnificent evangelism. I can see the mighty fall, the deep, unborn depravity, just as he describes it, w'ithout any sense of extravagance and without offence as against God. And wdien he brings out the rising side of grace, — justification, spiritual calling, and eternal pur- pose, I can hold a point where the work stands clear, and leaves the visible signature of God. " Oh the depth of the riches !" — this I can say, and. also feel. Sau Francisco, May 18, 1856. ... I find the city in a great tumult of excitement, and the Vigilance Committee brewing their plans to lyncli and drive into exile anything and everything that will clear the city of a gang whose rule has become insupportable. ... I spent a very pleasant week at San Jose. It is an old agricultural town, about the only agricultural town in California. It was a sorry affair before the Americans came, and is only a little better than sorry now. ... I believe I 25 376 LIPE OF liOllACE BUSHNELL. have not told you, as yet, how to build a California house, such as half the houses of San Jose, including the church and the hotel in which I stayed, and such as the first crop of houses are very generally. Set up some wooden legs on bits of plank that rest on the top of the ground ; on the legs rest the timbers for a floor, and lay on the floor, — all done so far. Then take some rough boards, and nail them on upright round the outside timbers of the floor-platform. On these put clapboards without, or battens up and down over the cracks. Then nail on, inside, a slat to support the tim- bers of the next floor, and, if two stories high, the next. Then stretch on smooth, and nail fast to the timbers over- head, a cheap cotton cloth ; that is the ceiling. Put the same on the sides, and lay on paper on the cotton. Presto, it is done, — a house, a church, a hotel, an Oakland college, what- ever you will. But my architectural study takes me away from the town. It lies on a broad, flat plain, twenty miles across. In a good season it would present a scene of the greatest imaginable luxuriance; but now it is all burning over — wheat, barley, everything — into the sere, dry state of autumn, by reason of the fact that the winter was so dry as to get no water in the springs for the summer's use. But this, again, makes the ar- tesian-wells, spouting out their rivers in almost every street and yard, the greater beauty. Some of these wells throw a stream into the air twelve feet high that is large enough to turn a small mill, sweet, clear, beautiful, — a charming symbol of the beauty of God, wdio is ever a grand water-store under this desert of life and sin, ready to well up in freshness when the conduits of the heart are opened to its flow. I visited the quicksilver mines in the vicinity, at JS^ew Almaden. It is a charming spot, with a kind of European air, and really fine Swiss scenery. The mine is up in the hill, a thousand feet above the village and refining- works, with a beautifully grand, zigzag road climbing up the sides of a deep gorge in the hill-side. Here it pierces the hill with a tunnel and rail- road, and then cuts right and left, and up and down, riddling the hill like a honey-comb to rifle its hidden contents. Back THE BIG TREES. 377 of the mine, or just over the top, under a grand overlooking mountain, opens, far down into the lower world, a deep fun- nel-shaped valley, with a patch of meadow at the bottom, and the side-hills rolling about in fresh green, with oaks sprinkled over like a park, and goats and donkeys grazing, or bearing loads of wood up to the miners' huts on the top. Taken all together, it is one of the finest landscapes that I ever saw. Scan Francisco, May 19, 185G. I have just returned from the Big Trees. The horseback ride was one of the most peculiar and charming I ever took, — all the way in the wilderness of the primitive state, save that here and there a little squatter town appears, and a fence runs around some scoop of moist land between the hills ; or you come upon a saw-mill or two, or a miners' ditch cut through the woods, to bring down water from the Sierra. I call it woods, and yet it was not what we mean by woods. There was no undergrowth, scarcely anywhere a rock. The road natural, yet smooth and graceful in its curves about and about the winding surfaces ; the sun streaming in, there among native oaks, and here among the conical evergreens towering as giants by the way, and casting all their shadows distinctly on the green surfaces, dotted with the most delicate and beautiful flowers such as no cultivated garden ever pro- duced— it really seemed as if it were some grandest park of the world ; and when I was returning, after seeing the Big Trees, I was tempted to call it, without any feeling of irrev- erence, the Park of the Lord Almighty. In the fifteen miles, we ascended two thousand four hundred feet; and for the first four miles climbed up along a gorge converted into a continual cataract, roaring and tumbling down, by the waters of the miners' ditch turned into it. Then we came out into the softer world above described, having the artificial river some- times far below, and sometimes leaping across overhead from one hill to another, in a wooden flume sixty or eighty feet high, and, it may be, half a mile long. Finally we parted company with the ditch, and went up into the silent upper world of beauty and grace, and began at length to see that 378 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. the trees grew larger and more luxuriant, especially at tlie fpot of the northern slopes and upon the lower grounds be- tween. Descending gently along a northern slope, we came down thus at last, among the files of little giants, to the gate of the big giants, and entered the cleared-ground yard of the '• Big Tree Hotel," between " The Two Sentinels," three hun- dred feet high, — the first of the Washington Cedars we had seen, I seemed never to have seen a tree before ; and yet they were only moderate in their scale compared with others. Close by the house lay the first cut of the Big Tree, too big to be split or handled in any way, twelve feet long. All the rest of the tree is cut np and removed. Next this first cut stood the stump, with an arbor mounted on the top. This stump, at the top, was twenty - five feet across by measure- ment ; and next the bottom, thirty-one feet. What a vegeta- ble ! I never till now stood in awe before a vegetable, and the stump of a vegetable ! After dinner we were taken the circuit of the grove and shown all. What a family of giants, but only about ninety of them, included all in a space of fifty acres ! This, I con- fess, was to me the greatest, strangest wonder, that nowhere in the whole earth is there another known example of these Anakims of the forest. Their race is small, but mighty. Is there — was there — no other piece of ground but just this in the world, that could fitly take the seeds of such a growth? Why have they never spread ? Why has no one of the seeds with which they sprinkled the ground ever started anywhere else among these hills and valleys? And what a starting was it when these seeds began ! Little did that small germ, about the size of a parsnip-seed, and looking much like it, imagine what it was going to do, what feeling to excite, when it be- gan to send up the Big Tree. This small parsni2>seed -going finally to open a road and turn a course of travel for thou- sands of people ! At the same time, it would be wrong not to add that two things conspired to diminish a little one's sense of effect in seeing these wonders. Many of the trees are badly injured at the root or bottom of the trunk by fire, and great cavities THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE. 370 are opened in tliis manner, into which I really think that, in one instance, a hundred people could be crowded. That man, a living man, supposed to have a soul, instigated by the in- fernal love of money, should have cut down the biggest of all, and skinned the next, " Tlie Mother," one hundred and twenty feet upward from the ground, — both sound as a rock at the heart, and good for another thousand years of growth, — oh, it surpasses all contempt ! Such a man would have skinned his own mother, I am sure, for the same cause. This fact vexes one unutterably ; and vexation does not sort well with sublimit3^ And yet, to see this Spartan mother still growing on, bearing her foliage and ripening her seeds, and refusing to die, hiding still her juices and working her pumps in the deep recesses of her barkless bodj^, which the sun of two whole years cannot season through, is a spectacle so grand as almost to compensate for the meanness and base- ness of the scamp wlio has moved our contempt so inoppor- tunely. The other detraction alluded to is the loss of poetry occa- sioned by a discount of the certain extravagance of the calcu- lations that are circulated in respect to the age of the tree ; as if it was growing when Athens left the quarry, or Thebes displayed her hundred gates, or before the fall of Troy, or, perchance, before the old red-sandstone age of geology. It is old enough, magnificently old ; but, as we proved beyond a doubt, by counting the circles, not a day over twelve hun- dred and seventy-five years. Yesterday was a strange day for Sunday. A sermon in the morning that encourages the Vigilance Committee to take the law into their own hands ; arriving at the hotel, a vast multitude of people, seen from the four- story piazza, thronging round the prison far up on the side of the hill ; shortly, a rush or moving current pouring across our street down to the Vigilance Committee rooms, showing that Casey and Cora are in the hands of the people. To-day they are to have their trial, I understand, before a jury not of the law, and will undoubtedly be hung. 380 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL, May 20. I have been hoping that the steamer, now due for more than a M'eek, would arrive and bring me a letter. But she does not appear. Meantime the steamer that was to sail to- day broke her piston, and waits till to-morrow. It seems to me that everything is out of order here. Commerce and trade depressed, agriculture discouraged by unwonted drought, the Panama difficulty, the Nicaragua difficulty ; the steamers in confusion, and friends waiting anxiously for the one that does not arrive ; and, more than all, the cit}^ hung to-day with mourning for the death of Mr. King ; and the Vigilance Com- mittee sitting on the life of two malefactors W'ho will un- doubtedly be hung to-morrow. Never did I see such an ex- citement, or one so full of sadness. Everybody is sad ; only there is a marvellous agreement of the people in the terrible proceedings on foot. Guards are patrolling night and day ; the street before the committee -rooms is filled with people, business all suspended, stores shut. Well is it that in so great disorder there is no violence. Dreadful retribution this for villanies that were riding down all law^ and justice ! The day could not but come at last; if not j)^^ fas, then^^?* nefas. God grant that now" a deliverance may come to this unhaj)py city and people ! But I fear the remedy itself is almost as bad as the evil Mission San Jose, June 3, 1856. I had a nice bit of a walk, one afternoon of last week, np what is called the Mission Peak. The Peak is quite high, four times as high as the Bolton Mountain or the Waramaug Pinnacle ; that is, about two thousand five hundred feet. The walk, besides the heavy climb, was about eight miles long, and I got home abundantly tired. The mountains about here are very diflierent from ours, you must know. They have no trees, except that where there is a deep gorge wind- ing round, so as to get away from the west wind, there will be scattered evergreen oaks, and sycamores, and buckeyes, — a kind of dwarf horse-chestnut, — with here and there a close undergrowth. Bocks and loose stones seldom appear, but the smooth, meadow- sided hills are piled up one upon auother. PARK AND CHURCH. 381 and tossed about in wild confusion, covered in the early- spring with a fresh growth of green wild-oats, and later with the same dried white. The change is now going on, and is about half made. But far up in the higher regions the landscape is still green, retaining its profusion of wild flow- ers. Away up in this upper world there are vast ranges of the most beautiful pasture ; and the Peak looks down upon them, dotted with their dark tree-tops, and the sheep-flocks, and the fancy-colored herds grazing on their surface, — taken all in all, a most charming scene. A very different scene it is from Waramaug; more naked, more pastoral, less rugged, and all on a larger scale. Oh, if it could have that lake in it, what should we say of it then ! But God does not put every good thing in one place. . . . I rejoice to see that the Common Council are bringing the Park matter to a close. I am also glad to hear that our church are about moving in the matter of a new building. They will do it, of course, very deliberately. The more I think of this, the more desirable it seems, and I really hope they will be able to get on. If they can get their plans the coming winter, and be ready for a start in the spring, it will be all they can expect to do. I want no gaudy, tricksy thing, but a sober, rational, right-looking structure, adapted to wor- ship,— one that will look well when it is old, and dingy, and cracked by time, having its commendation in the religious chastity and propriety of its arrangement. To Mr. and Mrs. A. 31. CoUins. Mission San Jose, June 19, 1856. My dear Friends, — The hills and the plains are now spread over with one universal Quaker color, and we expect no rain again to green them till October or November. The state of the community is not Quaker, however, by a good deal ; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke, pistols, bowie- knives, hemp, and chivalry, and all sorts of hanging and blood-letting ever heard of. Oh, it is a beautiful Aceldama, the like of which has not often been seen on this young world of ours ! I am sometimes half a mind to be sick in 3S2 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. spite of the healing, so dismal is the moral picture of this new world. You have no conception of it at the East, un- less you look to a point midway between both East and West ;* for there, as I read, I am sick again. I got The Tribune in my hand yesterday, and read one line ; and it tore my heart so that I could not read on, but lay down ach- ing on the bed, and waited till the afternoon for nerve to proceed. I did not know that a man's heart could make his body ache so, though I had read Paul's " could wish that I was accursed " many times. I can find no relief to these op- pressive clouds that just now overhang our dear country but to pray and be still. . . . Mission San Jos6, July 4, 1856. It really looked, for a time, as if it was about an even chance that I had come here to die. That feeling is now gone. Thanks to our heavenly Father that I am here, and that he gives me to see so much of his goodness. It makes me quite a child sometimes, when I sit down or kneel down, to recount the mercies of God to me. It seems to me that few men have been so much favored of God : my education, my marriage, my settlement, and the wonderful fidelity of my people, and now my good friend raised up out of a stranger to give me tlie best possible opportunity to prolong my life, the prayers of the righteous, and, above all, of the poor ! Had I been given free pla}'^ in early life for my wishes, what could I have wished that would have been so good, so glorious a token of God's care for me, and his consideration of my per- sonal welfare ? Other men are nursed by their afflictions, and I have had a few trials myself; but the wonder is that I could have been kept so uniformly in the line of favor. I have not been made rich, nor popular, nor a mark for envy in any way, and yet I liave been always on what men call the fortunate side, — not on the sea of fortune, but coasting gently along the shore, with the nicest harbors and landing-places at hand whenever they were wanted. So I have had much comfort and little care, and my little skiff has been kept sailing as * Referrinc: to Kansas. THE CONDITION OF CALIFORNIA. 383 bravely on as if it were a galley. Shall I founder at last? I think not. In the past I see a pledge for the future. Not to trust God now would be even a kind of folly, saying noth- ing of the wrong. I need hardly tell you, what you will see in the papers, that California is in a truly wretched state, never so wretched as now. It is really depressing to me in this quiet nook of re- tirement, and a mere looker-on. I can hardly be a looker-on when such dangers are pending. It would be no surprise to me to hear, almost any day, that fire and murder were loose in San Francisco, rank as in the days of Robespierre. I hope better things, but there is no security for anything. The ar- rest of Judge Terry, and the question of his life and death, known to be pending, makes the revolution more dreadfully critical than it has been at any time before. The Vigilance Committee are the best men here ; I believe they really mean to do good, and also that, in plucking down the shoulder- strikers and rescuing the ballot-box from their nsurpation, they have done a really great and necessary work ; but they ruin their cause when they come to state it. I have written one article for the papers, hoping to shed a little light on the difficulties. I have heard it spoken of with commendation, but it was printed with such awful mistakes that I have no pleasure in it. I am to deliver the installa- tion* sermon the day after to-morrow, and have written a special sermon on the text, Jeremiah i. 10, undertaking to show that, do what we can or will, nothing can make a happy- community but religion. I took this subject because I shall speak, in fact, to the whole State, and hope to do good by it. They will hear nothing else, and this, I think, they will. I have been very unfortunate in losing my gold watch. I fear I lost it upon the highway, in which case I shall never see it again. It was my vade-mecum, — a kind of mechanical wife, and I miss it more than I can express, putting my hand to my side for it twenty times a day, for a new disappoint- ment. Well, my good Brother Steele will never have to re- * Of the Rev. Mr. Lacy in Sau Francisco. 38-i LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. pair it again for nothing. By-tlie-way, I ain in a quandary as to whether I have written hira or not. Give him my special regards, and tell him how much I think of him now, by com- pulsion ! And yet I want not that to love him. He is one of the men that keep time in the heavenly marcli. These are dark times. I could not read the Kansas news without throwing down the paper and waiting till next day. When I told a Nantucket Yankee in the house what was the news, and he replied, "I am glad on't," I blew out on him in such an explosion as I think he will remember. I never gave such a setting down to any mortal, and was half a mind to be ashamed of it next day, but he had absconded before break- fast. Here, too, are we waiting for the wounded man Hop- kins to live or die, on which probably depends the life of Judge Terry, on which depends I don't know what, — I trem- ble to guess. But God reigns. Amen, my soul, to that. Oh, how good it sounds ! To the Rev. Samuel II. Willey, Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the College of California. Sau Francisco, July 10, 1856. T)ear Sm, — The resolution of your Board, inviting me to the Presidency of the College of California, I have sufficient- ly considered to return the qualified answer that appears, b}" the terms of it, to be expected. I am duly sensible of the honor conferred on me by their appointment, — an honor which is only the greater, in fact, that the College can hardly be said to exist, and is, as yet, to be created. I will interest myself at once in the institution, and will endeavor to do what I can, privately, during the two or three months to come, to excite an interest in it, and to assist you in plans regarding its endowment and its final location, if a change in this latter respect should be deemed desirable. In this manner I shall be able to learn what friends it is likely to have, or whether it will have any whose views are suffi- ciently expanded to fulfil conditions that must be fulfilled, in case I should finally assume the office. Further than this. niESIDENCY OF THE COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA. 385 I can make no definite answer at present ; but that you may take up no expectations which will lead you into disappoint- ment, I feel it to be my duty to state to you frankly on wliat ground I choose to stand. I am a Christian pastor, holding a very peculiar relation to my flock, because of their most honorable and very unexam- pled steadfastness and fidelity to me in times of public trial. I can never think it honorable, either to me or to religion, that I should leave them, unless by the compulsion of a stern necessity. Whenever it is clear that I can be of no service to them longer, they will rejoice, I know, to have me placed, if possible, where I can serve others. Such a contingency may happen. I have ascertained, I think, that I can live here in sufficient force to be useful. I may find that I cannot there. In that case, I may be willing to assume the office you tender. I say not that I will. It will depend partly on the prospects I may seem to have discovered of the necessary endowments ; partly on what may seem to be due to my family. In the mean time, if you fall upon the name of any person who, you think, will sustain the office eifectively, and you be- come convinced that longer delay is likely to be detrimental or fatal to your undertaking, I will make room at any mo- ment for another appointment. With high consideration for your Board, and a most fer- vent interest in your undertaking, I am yours, Horace Bushnell. To the North Church and Society. Martinez, Cal., July 14, 185G. Brethken and Friends, — You w^ill hear from the papers and otherwise that I have just received the appointment of President of the College of California. The appointment was tendered to me in the understanding that I was neither to accept nor decline it absolutely, but to wait on Providence. To prevent any misunderstanding that might loosen at all the tie which has bound us together in a relation so dear to me for so many years, I thought fit to give a written answer that might be published. This answer you will see. If you 386 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. receive it in the impression I myself entertain of it, the chances of my separation from you will be neither increased nor di- minished. The understanding I have with the Trustees is positive, that I will never allow the thought of a separation from you, even for a moment, except in a contingency that involves, in itself, the fact of a practical separation. My health is now so far restored that I have a strong- confidence of being able, in about four months, to resume my duties. This is the desire of my heart, and the burden of my contin- ual prayer to God. No earthly attraction draws me but this. Day and night my longing is after my dear flock. Still, I cannot hide from myself the possibility that a return to the moist climate of the East may bring on a recurrence of my difficulties; and it may be God's design to compel a change and bring me into some other field. If so, I must submit to him, and I have confidence in you that you will also submit to him as implicitly as I. Assuming that you will deem it an affliction, it cannot be as great an affliction to you as to me. I have always had it for my hope, if not my ambition, that I might be able to close my work in the place where it began — to do my whole work among you, and die with you. . . . May God put it in our hearts to review the past before him, rectify all our omissions, and restore all our defects of duty. So let all obstructions be removed, that we may still abide in our happy union, as in the many years gone by. The grace of our God be upon us evermore. Your pastor, Hoeace Bcshnell. Sau Francisco, July 18, 1856. To give you my history for the last fortnight in order, I left the Mission, the day after I wrote you last, for this place, to preach Mr. Lacy's installation sermon. I preached on Sun- day evening, and had a grand audience, whom I occupied for about an hour and twenty minutes. I remained here five or six days, to see the sermon through the press, during which time I was honored with the appointment of President of the College of California. Don't be frightened. I am not yet settled in the office. I gave them my answer at once, which PROSPECTING FOR A COLLEGE SITE. 387 you will see. I also went directly into the Board of Trustees and told them what I should answer, and, by their request, consented to act with a committee, already raised, to select a final location. Accordingly, I set off on Friday for Martinez, a small town with whose beauty I had been struck in sailing by, some eight weeks ago. Here I have stayed, examining, trying climate, riding over the whole region adjacent, etc., till yesterday (Thursday). Last night I came down in the steamer, on my way back to the Mission, staying over to-day, consulting, etc. In about three weeks I shall come up again to visit Martinez with the Trustees, or with as many as can go. I have been to two or three other locations near by, and there is also another near the Mission. I have gone into this C071 mnore, as you know I naturally would. It is an occupa- tion, and a most pleasant and refreshing one. Mission San Jose, August 19, 185G. It is very fortunate for me that I have this matter of pros- pecting for a' college on hand, as it is an employment out- doors, and one that exactly suits my taste. Only it would not exactly suit my taste to be eaten by a bear, though it might the taste of the bear, — a strangely vicious bear, if it would ! There is a ravine four miles north of tliis place, where the Alameda Creek breaks through the mountains, which are twelve hundred feet high on one side, and twice that on the other. It is a fearfully wild place; but I want- ed to see how I might get through it, and arranged with Mr. B to go a-fishing with him. He became tired, and sat down, — for it was a fearfully hot day, — waiting for me to go on and complete my explorations. After I had got on through the bushes and rocks fifty or sixty rods, it occurred to me that it would be a beautiful place for a grizzly to make his appearance, and I had not got ten rods farther before I heard the bushes crashing as if a bull were trampling them, just over a little swell or dike between me and the creek. I saw no bear, and really did not want very much to see one ; but I did want to run very much, only I had a little pride about it, and so I compounded for a walk. Meantime, as I 388 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. had left Mr. Ilosmer's dirk -knife at liome, I took out my small knife, opened the largest blade, and carrying that in my hand for defence, — about as good defence as a pin would make, — I marched back Tiery straight. That it was a grizzly, I hav^e no doubt. There is no track or sign of cattle passing here, and the tracks of grizzlies are often found. So it is my felicity to think that I have been within four rods of a griz- zly, and got off safe ! At the upper end of this gorge it opens out into the Sunole Yalley, the place which is in itself my favorite location for a college. It is not very much like college life to be eaten up, so close at hand, by a bear. Mission San Josg, September 3, 1856. I went out yesterday morning to my College paradise, to go through a series of levels and measures of distance, to find whether the water will run to the ground, and how far it must be brought. I drove a pair of mules ten miles and walked twelve miles, working at the engineer's tools all the wdiile, and keeping my feet all day from morning to night, except what time I was in the wagon. I ate nothing till dusk, when, out of a sense of the need, when I did not want it, I ate a pretty full dinner. But I had no power left for digestion. I went to bed and rolled all night, sleeping only about an hour just at dawn. I was never so completely fagged, though I really did not know it till after I went to bed. This morning I was obliged to go over again on horse- back, and I have just now returned (three o'clock p.m.). I was obliged to press this matter so hard, because Mr. McLean, an engineer, one of the Trustees, had come up from San Fran- cisco to make the examination, and could get on with it only by the help of another. I hurried and pressed yesterday af- ternoon to get on, but we could not finish. You would have laughed to see me running with the rod from one station to another, sometimes half a mile. The Republicans are now getting on here finely ; I think they will carry the State. My friend Mr. Rankin, greatly to my surprise, is nomi- nated for Congress. If he succeeds, California will for once DIRECT REVELATIONS. 389 have an incorruptible and spotless man in the national coun- cils. I can hardly tell you what a relief it is to hear how the fire catches on the eastern shore. God grant that we may now, at last, see the tide of barbarism and misrule turned ! Mission San Josg, September 18, 1856. I omitted, or forgot in my last, to follow up my bear story in the previous letter. I was up in the hills over the gorge, where I didnH see the bear, and asked a squatter there if they ever saw anything of bears thereabout. " Yes," said he ; " my son found the tracks of one this morning, a little way off, prowling about to get hold of my cattle." The very next day I heard that he and his son had been very nearly killed by the bear. Happily they are now recovered, but it was a narrow escape. Since then the bear-tracks have been seen down in the gorge itself. In my rides and explorations, I have grown a good deal shy lately ; and clambering up through the deep ravines and bushes alone in search of wa- ter has come to be quite out of fashion. The weather now is coming to the turn here. It begins with now and then a day of east wind, blow^ing hot from the San Joaquin Yalley, reversing the cool west wnnd of the sum- mer. We have had three such days — days baking hot — and this is one. But I keep in my adobe shell, as cool as a cu- cumber. We have even had a shower, — a most remarkable thing for the season ; only the mere skirt of it, however, has moistened us. I forgot to say that we had thunder with our shower, which is here a great curiosity, — more curious and strange even than an earthquake. I am doing very well, I think, still, in the matter of health. I have preached in all seven times, — the last time more like myself than at any oth- er, and with no bad effects. I am almost tempted sometimes to go upon the stump, when I see such cringing of Northern men as I do here ; the devil tries to make me think it a relig- ious duty, but he won't. I get off only by telling him that I am not open to conviction. Now to your catechism : Does God make direct revelations to men now ? Did he of old, then why not now ? Does not 390 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. the pei'sonalitj of God imply it ? In some sense I think it does, and that a kind of latent pantheism is a considerable ground of unbelief on the subject, which latent pantheism reaches farther than is commonly supposed. To this general view I have been held in writing, before I was put to the question by your letter. The more I ponder these subjects, the more my mind runs to this conviction — that as God is what he was, and men what they were, so what has been be- tween God and man is likely still to be. But this, too, I be- gin to see more clearly, is not the end of the subject. Going thus far, there are yet considerations which must be admitted as having a qualifying power. 1. "We do not see all the mental struggles through which the prophets, for example, passed. It was not a sceptical age, but they must have had a great many doubts at times wheth- er they were this or that, taught or not. "We occasionally dis- cover this in their modes of expression. But they common- ly spoke at the flood, when they were most positive, and we, therefore, see little of the ebb ; still less of the process by which the young prophet came on so as to dare to think him- self a prophet. The true method here is to invert our law and say that, as we look to see now what has been of old, so we are to judge that the men of old had just such struggles of thought about themselves as we have now, apart from oui- pantheism and habitual unbelief. Considering, then, how few times they came to the flood and spoke, we have a consider- able limitation on our revelations, or the hope of them. 2. These prophets and men of distinct revelation were few in number. We look back, and think we see many. Put the centuries in between them, and tliey scatter into extreme rarity. Why should they be more frequent now ? 3. There are two kinds of inspiration, as I have lately seen more distinctly than before. There is the inspiration of character, and the inspiration of use : one that God gives to make us better and reveal himself in us ; the other to qualify us for a use, to write a book of scripture, for exam- ple, to "devise cunning works," etc. The grand general principle is that he works or breathes in men for their own MODES OF INSPIRATION. 391 benefit, and to prepare for the uses of benefit to wliicb lie will put tliem in the world. To all men he gives the first in- spiration, and to all men the last. But in the last they are not all wanted to be revealers or prophets, but some to be shoe- makers and bankers, etc., etc. Therefore, the kind of power he is in these is a power in their natural judgment and ex- ecutive force, and not any power of revealing his secrets to men, or writing scripture for them. He wants only a few for this use, and gives only a few the requisite inspiration. Are all prophets ? Are all workers of miracles ? No. It is even competent for him to say that he wants no more script- ure written, and he is the judge. The fact that it is written may be a good reason why it should not be any more. The inspiration of use is measured by the want of it. The other is universal, because it needs to be. 4. The kind of handling God gives to his people will re- spect their age, modes of thought, life, and state of advance- ment. While he is thus as nigh as he ever was to any age, communicating to us as freely, it may be that the very thing he wants now is to square us down to laws and terms of or- der ; not to amuse us and call us off by casual things, wonders, prophecies, and the like. That, after all, was a poor, vagrant age. If he can finally get us to looking after gifts, and graces, and answers by fixed laws, that may be the real harvest of the Spirit, as it is the harvest of physical production. On the whole, not excluding visions and revelations when God sees fit to give them, I do not think that we can argue from the past to their commonness now or hereafter. As to the hearing of prayers, that appears to be the want of every age, and comes to a little different point from the matter of revelations. If we knew how to pray by law, it would be all the better. Mission San Josg, October 3, 1856. I do not feel very much pressed with the final question as yet. I recoil from it. And yet, while I shy the subject in this manner, I am haunted, about half the time, by the feel- ing that I am getting so far into the matter that I can never get out. Whom can I trust with one of my ideals to 26 392 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. take it up and go on with it, when it is a mere ideal, and nothing lias come into the solid to guide the future develop- ment ? . . , We talk of water here just as the Scriptures do. It is precious, I never could understand why so much should be made of water. But the springs, the dry brooks, the run- ning brooks, — all these w^ater terms come to me here with real scriptural meaning. No gem, no crystal, no gold, no fruit, — nothing compares with water. And it will not be fifty years before we have vast overarched reservoirs here for storing water underground, as in the East. You w^ould think that we must be desolate beyond expres- sion, surrounded by such dryness. But it is not so. We take the time much as you do the winter. It is our winter, only it is in the summer, and is the time of harvest. Nature is torpid. The leaves begin to fall off by dryness, the sap falling away as it does with you for cold, and the dry torpor coming on instead of the cold torpor. And, strange as it may seem, w^e have really beautiful scenery now, though notliing that we ever call scenery at home ; the colors are all different, and yet strikingly beautiful. I w^ish I could transfer a scene to you that I looked on to-day. I rode out with a clerical friend to the summit that commands the gorge of the stream, where it breaks through the mountain. Such a gulf — a thou- sand feet deep, yellow on one side, spotted with evergreen oaks, and purple on the other (the shady) side, spotted with the same, and with the brilliant, glossy shittim and bay woods ! The colors put on a landscape w^ould be called absurd, impos- sible; and yet they are fact. How many other impossible things are fact in the same manner ! Distant objects, or far-off backgrounds, too, have a peculiar depth of effect ; the smoky blue resting on the yellow, and gloriously lighted up by it, so that as you look you seem to hear a kind of music ringing in the colors. My book is done, and ready for the press. But mark ! in writing the last head the subject of another book came upon me as never before, though I have before spoken to you of it, — " the Laws of Grace," or " the Laws of the Supernatural." LETTER TO HIS CHURCH. 393 I see the subject in a shape that makes me more desirous than ever to lay hold of it. This would bring all to practical issue, and I tliink a great contribution would be made to the life of religion. If I do not fall into the College, here is some- thing else that I think I will do. To the North Church of Hartford. San Francisco, October 19, 185G. My deak Flock, — It is a little presumptuous, it may be, to address you by this title when I myself am so little of a shep- herd to you ; but I can satisfy myself with no other appella- tion. Indeed, I seem, in these ends of the earth, to be about as close to you as if I was locally with you ; and it is even a Scripture idea that we are alwa3's where our hearts are. This it is, and not the bodj^, which fixes our locality. We are even said to have our conversation in heaven by the same law. We are there among angels and glorified men, because our long- ings and the strong affinities of life are there. We share their company, talk with them by a kind of holy anticij)ation, and so we have our conversation there. And so my conversation is with you. If I hear your prayers, if I enjoy your unity, if I rejoice in your constancy and the confidence of your com- mon love, where am I more truly than among you ? Watch- ing, and waiting, and striving, with you, is no matter of locali- ty. Geographical degrees do not pertain to love ; climates, and zones, and seas are not its boundaries. The concert of prayer is none the less real because it is inaudible. If I think of you in the night-watches, that is to be with you by day ; for time is no boundary, any more than space or place. So I call you my flock, and must, till something more potent than either time or place separates me from you, and that I think, will never be. When you betray my confidence or I desert your welfare, when some root of bitterness grows up between us, it will be time to imagine that we are separate. Anything which breaks the cord of remembrance or separates us from our common Lord, which neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature can, will finally sunder us. Until then, I must call you mine, — my friends, my brethren, the compan- 394 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. ions of my toil, the supporters of my weakness, the patient enclurers of my faults, the wall God raises against my ene- mies. How, then, is it with you, my brothers in the Lord ? Does the world get no advantage over you ? Are you still instant in prayer? Are you faithful as you were in good works? Is your communion lively and clear? When I come among you, shall I find you such as I would, or be compelled to mourn over some of you that have fallen away ? It will be a sad day to me if I find that you have lost ground. If, then, you have, any one of you, slidden but a little, return with a hasty repentance, and let me find you standing fast, the same that you were, l^o, not the same, but stronger and better. It is not enough that you hold your ground ; a liv- ing Christian can do better, and, if he truly lives, he must. Not to grow is to die. May God be ever with you and keep you, — keep you alive ! He alone can do it, and to him only could I look if I were with you in the flesh. As ye have learned Christ Jesus, so be ye rooted and built up in him. If we have sometimes been accused of denying Christ, the accu- sation will be true when we are seen to have no root in him. But if our life is the manifestation of his, if we feed on the eternal bread of his sacrifice and resurrection, then no adver- sary can harm us or rightfully blame us. I shall now be with you bodily, in a time that is rapidly shortening. Oh, that I may come in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ ! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, till then and forever, be with you. Horace Bushnell. To Mr. Thomas Winship. San Francisco, October 20, 1856. My dear Friend, — I enclose with this a letter to the Church, which I beg you to jDresent to Brother Hyde,* with my regards, and my earnest praj'er for his success. I should have written to him ; but when I took my pen I thought of you and yours, particularly of your afflicted and blessed * The Rev. James T. Hyde filled the pastoral office in Dr. Bushnell's church acceptably to all during his absence. LETTER FOR AN INVALID. 395 daughter, and felt so drawn to her solitary lot of trial and pain that I turned from liini to you. It is not for M 's sake alone, however, that I write you, but also that I so much love the man, in whose heart God has put it to be found among the faithful. I have seen you bearing your load pa- tiently and steadily, and have learned to value you the more highly, that I think I have seen 3^ou blooming in adversity, and bringing honor upon it. God himself puts a special hon- or on them whom he loads heavily, and why should not I ? I have known something of trial in these two years of suspense and nothingness, and I sometimes think I am as much honor- ed in this as in things that have worn a more prosperous look. " The trial of your faith is precious," says One who had a right to know. Do we not know as much ? I suppose that M continues, — continues, I hope, to maintain her peace, and wait in patience for her time. That room is a small place for one that has so large a title ; that bed and gathered-up position a narrow cage for one whose wings are plumed for so wide a flight. But the future eagle is not any the less an eagle that it is gathered for awhile in the compass of a nest. Besides, the imprisonment of the body does not hamper or confine the soul. That can range and occupy the universe. Thanks be to God, the mind that loves him must be free. Many a soul is in prison that has the body free, and flies in eager travel round the world. Many a soul is loose, having all eternity and space, that cannot lift the clod it inhabits. It is even the nature of true faith that it scorns all outward restrictions, all bodily weakness and pain. Tell your daugh- ter that when we get some spring or leap, we must needs have some reacting base or object, and that so God is holding fast her body that she may spring the higher. I say, tell her this ; but she knows it. She has found her emancipation com- ing out of her bondage. She knows that her pains and disabili- ties have brought her peace and strength. The chariot that drives fast must be shaken. The silver that is well refined must be melted by a fierce heat. And God is said to visit every morning where he tries every moment. Hold on, pain - stricken child of God, and you shall see what in no 390 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. mood of health could ever be shown you. " Be of good cheer," says One ; " it is I." He said it in the storm, never says it in the calm or on the peaceful shore. In true Christian love, I am yours, II. B. Mission San JostS, November 3, 1856. I am just in, this morning, from my last horseback ride, having preached yesterday at Centreville, six miles off, and then gone down two miles farther, to spend the night with Mr. Beard's father. I have been staying here now a whole week, in order to vote. I expect to do this to-morrow morn- ing, and jump directly into the stage and be off for San Francisco, thence to Sonoma, to do a little more thorough prospecting there ; when that kind of work, or rather play, w^ill be done, except two or three days of it at Clinton, after I return, and before the meeting of the Trustees, which will be on Thursday, the 12th. The dear little filly that has been wings to me in my rides for some time past, fairly danced with fun as I came home this morning ; and I could not help thinking that she had some additional sense of lightness from sympathy with me, in the sense of my last ride and to-mor- row's first step homeward. I speak of it as a matter of joy, and yet it is a matter also of real sadness. I have had a stranger's home with these dear friends, and I leave them with great reluctance. They have done everything, and spared nothing, for my comfort or even pleasure. There is no place in the whole world where I could have been as hap- py, or as well cared for, as here, — ^. e., none away from my real and true home, where my heart centres in my blessed wife and my dear children. I take it as one of the provi- dences of our Heavenly Father for us that I was directed to this place, and allow^ed to be settled in the favor of these strangers. In this fact I see a large part of the healing in- fluence that has set me in the way of recovery. I cannot tell you, therefore, how tenderly I love these friends, — so liberal, bountiful, affectionate, and noble-hearted. I shall go a long way before I find their match. If I had been a brother, they could not have been more free or careful of me, or more COLLEGE SITE AT CLINTON. 397 ready to sacrifice anything for me. God bless them and theirs forever, — their trials, their children, the very walls of their house ! And it is a great comfort to me that they seem to be as much attached to me as I to them. We have had, as yet, almost no rain here, though enough has fallen at Oakland and vicinity to freshen the hills a lit- tle. "We have had several heavy frosts on the plain below, but we are a little elevated, and have escaped. Our garden is rich in the finest grapes, pears, and figs, and we had a fine dish of strawberries on Saturday, November 1st. Think of itj — strawberries from April to November ! The nights are cool, but the days are often even hot as in summer. The plains below are covered with flocks of geese, and the air is alive with their clamor. Another peculiarity, — two or three kinds of birds have renewed their song as in spring. I saw one with food in her mouth, a few days ago, indicating a pro- vision for her nest ! This fact concerning the birds I never heard spoken of, even by the Californians. I began to notice it several weeks ago. I begin to guess that we shall finally settle on a site at Clinton, a city that was to be on the opposite side of the bay from San Francisco. The last time I went up in the stage I noticed, while passing over the plain about half a mile across, two promontories setting out endwise towards it, and present- ing beautifully graded eminences, with a gently scooped val- ley between, which runs back upon the same level six or eifflit hundred feet. I said this must be looked to. I rode out with Durant and McLean two or three days after, and found the view from these points magnificently beautiful. Back in the hills I clambered down into a deep ravine, and found, to our surprise, a stream of mountain water that will run one hundred and fifty thousand gallons per day, which can be brought in, a distance of less than two miles, so as to have a head of at least one hundred feet. I don't know as yet what terms we can get for the plain. It was laid ofi years ago into a regular quadrated city, but has come to noth- ing, and the owners talk well. But then we have also to get. the right of the stream, which I think will not be difficult. 398 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. because it sinks as soon as it reaches the plain, and is seen no more. The geography is like this : — [A rough outline map is sketched here.] You will be struck by the amount of green in the foreground of Oakland and Alameda ; by the city sloping towards the Golden Gate, the shipping and the open sea to be seen straight through it ; by the island and the mountains right and left of the city. It is really magnificent. There is only one fault, viz., that the city is too near, too easily reached by the ferry- boats continually plying. This one fault staggers me ; and yet it will make it more convenient to live, and the College will excite a more living interest in the city, before which it stands beautifully prominent. There is also more real virtue and more of good influence in the city, with all its vices, than anywhere else — a more elevating and conserving power of society. San Francisco, November 15, 1856. It is a great relief and refreshment to me to hear that tlie Park is going on so finely. But the thing that refreshed me most, and came most like a visitation from heaven, was the tenderness and brotherly love of dear Winship. Oh, what a depth of reason there is in that holy anxiety ! what an indi- cation it is of real insight into human weakness ! Few of my acquaintance, I dare say, w^ill ever think of such a possibility ; and yet it squares, how perfectly, with all that I know of my- self and the struggles of weakness and real frailty in my heart ! I cannot say, my dear wife, that I have not lost ground in my nearness to God, but my heart leaps up, how quick, and free- ly, and full, when I come to what I may call a resting-place of thought and busy travel. I wrote Winship a letter by the last steamer (I think it was). I wish I had known what your letter tells me before mine was written. How strange some of these things are ! Twice you have written me to write others just when I was doing it. Winship is weeping over me, or for me, in his prayers, just when I am turning aside to refresh my soul in communion with him and get a spring in that communion. DESIRE FOR A GOOD NAME NOT AMBITION. 399 I left tlie Mission a little more than a week ago, and since tliat time I have been up again to take a more deliberate view of the Petaliima and Sonoma valleys. I have also been tak- ing the gauge of the Clinton site, and of all the country north of it on the opposite side of the bay, getting water-levels, terms of cost, etc. For the last two days the Trustees have been at work to settle the question. I read them a full report, de- scribing, as definitely as I could, five places. The point is not yet quite decided. I am off this afternoon for Sacramento, to preach for Mr. Benton, and stay there and at Marysville eight or ten days, prospecting now for the gold. If I can get a university on its feet, or only the nest-egg laid, before I return, I shall not have come to this new world in vain. You seem to fear that I may be ambitious in it, af- ter some bad sense. I have as good reason to fear it, proba- bly, as you, and yet I cannot think that whatever any one may have done with a certain respect to good name is wrong. The Scriptures even make a reward of it. If we only look for a good name in such a temper as will just as certainly encounter a bad, should it come, trusting God for the name, be it good or bad, I do not see that we need be afraid of it. At any rate, I must own the impeachment so far as this: I should like to be known as having started into life, on these new and distant shores, a university that hereafter will be looked upon as a great source of light and Christian power ; nor, any the less, to have done it, when seeking my health, as a substitute for idleness. I am now in good heart, wearing down every man, young or old, that undertakes to go riding and climbing with me. Everybody says, " How well you look !" But the play is over; what remains is work in comparison. However, I shall not kill myself in carrying the bag ; for I am more likely to drop the thirty pieces as a sordid business, and give it up. To go a-pros- pecting in nature will do, but to go a-prospecting in the hearts of mankind is different. Sacramento, November 18, 1856. This is Monday morning, and I preached twice yesterday, for the first time, partly in the way of experiment. I feel 400 LIFE OF IIOllxVCE BUSIINELL. very well, able to work, and stir, and do, and wear, and yet I have certain vestiges of bad sensation which shake a little my confidence of the future. Still, I should be in excellent spirits were it not for the terrible depression I feel for the gone case of the election. Everything looks bright enough but that, so that I am permitted to see, in the terrible sinking of heart I feel for my dear country, how much I love it, and how great a stake I have in its honor and its true liberties. I am glad to see that your heart is so deeply alive, and your hands so ear- nestly engaged, in the cause of the poor Kansas people. If I had a son, there is no cause in which I would more willingly see him die than in theirs. One thing more : this fight must never be given up ; we must take it as now begun, and only be- gun. On we must go, working, reasoning, fighting as for life, till we conquer. San Francisco, December 3, 1856. . . . My great infirmity is, I know, that ideals are apt to be my tempters, and yet they should not be. If they are good and great, they ought to draw me closer to God. They would, I am certain, if I did not sometimes drop into the external of them, and rest in what is medial. . . . Our late meeting of the Trustees did not settle the question of location, as I believe I told you. ... I am going to set off, this afternoon, up to San Pablo, east of the bay and north of the city, to see if I can discover another location, so as to be ready, when the Trustees meet, to report another. ... I am not going to shoulder the subscription business myself, but only to get the question ready for others by seeing personally the principal men, and then calling together some hundred of them to make a state- ment and appeal. Then my work is done. December 5, 1856. I am a good deal baffled in my efforts to fix the College site. Out of the five places I selected and recommended, two have failed, and the third, I think, will. The Sonoma site I could not get at all. The Clinton fails because of one or two obstinate fellows on the stream, who will not let the water go out of its natural channel. The Suuole I expect to fail of, SAN PABLO. 401 partly because of an unexpected difficulty- of expense in bringing the water, and partly because I am likely to get no favorable terms for the land. My excursion just referred to has brought out another site, as beautiful as any, and having some advantages over all. I can have water in abundance, and the best, at moderate expense in the bringing, and two hundred acres of the very best land for nothing. The sce- nery is water and mountain scenery combined, and that as fine as need be. The difficulty here is the wind of the sum- mer months, which I think is too cold and too continual, — the few trees of the region being all combed in their tops in a slope, or slant away from it, and the very stubble of the fields leaning off in the same direction. The place is called San Pablo. It is a little like this : — [Au outline map follows here, with a description of the scenery.] I arrived just at dusk, and found no place open but a little dirty shell of a place, where hostlers, drivers, and a drove of rough fellows who came up to rent the lands were the guests. We ate our supper by three tables-full of fifteen at a time ; and such a supper ! The host kindly volunteered to get me a place to sleep, and succeeded in begging me into Mr. 's bed with him, at Sefior C 's. Here, between dirt, and cold, and fleas, and a very good-natured bedfellow, I spent the night. Going over to breakfast at the dirty hole aforesaid, I was obliged to tell them that I had not washed. They gave me the nastiest tin dipper of water I have seen ; and when I went in to notify my want of a towel, they brought me one that must have been used by the whole company for some days. I looked it over, and told them that I preferred to dry off. But I recollected my pocket-handkerchief, and came off nice- ly. A breakfast of griddle-cakes and molasses, eaten, not be- cause the cakes were good, but because the molasses was like to be no dirtier than it is always, made my outfit for the day. San Francisco, December 18, 1856. Only one month more, — that is all. I say it very easily when talking to you, but not so easily when talking to my- 402 LIFE OF HOKACE BUSHNELL. self. God is certainly very good to us all, and it is no time for us to be sad over any little privation that comes with the blessing. San Francisco, January' 3, 1857. This is my last letter; I am down for a passage by the Golden Gate of the 20th. . . . The location of the College is finally determined, and, what will a little surprise you, at a place never before mentioned, viz., in the Napa Yallcy. I will give you the history of the last week, that will show you how, and some things beside. As I was going down to San Jose last Saturday to preach, the captain of the boat told me of a beautiful site about three miles north-east of Napa City, where there was a fine stream of water. I decided instantly to go there on my re- turn. I left San Jose on Monday morning, and a terrible gale took us on the bay, that made a rather serious time for us, carried off one of the wheel-houses, poured a heavy sea across the boat, carried off one of the scuttles, and sent a grand cascade into the hold, filling it ten or twelve inches deep. The prospect was that we should be swamped in the middle of the bay, where it is ten miles wide. The sailors thought we were going to Davy Jones's locker, and began to get drunk. But we fenced out the water, pumped out what we had taken, and in half an hour were comparatively snug, arriving only three hours behind our time, all safe. Tuesday morning I set off by boat for Napa City, which is a little west- ern town at the landing, or head of tide-water, in the valley of that name, and is the third in order of the three valleys that open on the San Pablo Bay, beginning at the west, — Petalu- raa, Sonoma, Napa. I made a rush to the spot just in time to see it and get back to the hotel before the rain of the night began to pour ; found a very nice stream of water, and noth- ing else ! Lay awake with rheumatic pains, which for some reason took me that night, and heard the roaring, driving storm all the ni^-ht lone;. Thouo-ht I had not exhausted the place, — that I might possibly take the water to another place and get a good lookout. Gave the morning to another trial. Forded the stream, where the water came almost to my sad- NAPA CITY. 403 die-top, clipping in my knees with my legs drawn np. The new spot no improvement. Took the afternoon stage to Benicia, thence to go down in the night boat from Sacra- mento. Before leaving the hotel, I pointed several persons to a fine, lofty terrace in the hills on the other side of the valley, the western, inqniring whether no water came out of the deep gorge close by it. Some said, " None ;" some, "A little." All agreed that there was no good stream at all. I had made the same inquiry two months before, with the same result. I found on board the stage a gentlemanly passenger who lives right in the spot itself, who said there was water there. Running water i Yes. How much ? That he could not find any terms to show. By-and-by, when about half-way down to Benicia, it came ont that there is a saw-mill on the stream ! I reached San Francisco that night, and took the steamer again, the next morning, for jSTapa. Went to the ground as fast as I could ride in the awful mud of three miles, and got back just at dark. Attended a great ball that night, — i. philosophy of it unspeakably crude and naturalistic ; and yet I was greatly moved notwithstanding, and, I trust, profited. The close was eloquent enough to be a sermon by itself. Professor Shedd gave the Address before the Society of Inquiry for the Theo- logical Seminary, in Dr. Adams's church, — scholastic, badly- planned, and, with much fine thought and expression, a virt- ual failure. I was the more disajjpointed because it is not his way to make a failure. This morning I took breakfast at Professor II. B. Smith's, where I met Shedd and Bancroft and others, who are more or less among the celebrities. They talked about Goethe, Kant, Jacobi, Schelling, Hegel, and other Germans, and we had a good time of it — after we got through with the Ger- mans. I hear much good for my book. Even the Puritan Re- corder is out for me ! But this is moonshine all; why do I name it? My heart is not in it, but with you and my dear brethren of the church. With you, as drawn to you by a most assured and truly rest- ing love, that we may be kept on earth just long enough to do up our work, and have it complete. AVith them, that the}^ may not faint in their faith, but hold on till their faith is crowned. They have how many, waiting and already half prepared to the harvest ! These that are so nigh, shall they not enter? Oh, they must! My heart aches to see them in the Lord, and greet them as his. To Dr. Bartol. Hartford, May 19, 1858. My dear Fkiend and Brother, — I thank you for your kind invitation, and will avail myself of it for a day or two. I shall probably come to Boston from Fall Hiver some time on Monday. As to the devil getting yon, I don't believe a word of it, and scarcely more that I am getting more orthodox, which may be very nearly the same thing concerning me. I be- lieve nothing in orthodoxy, but all in the Lord Jesus Christ. LETTER FROM THE NORTH CHURCH. 415 Did yon see the commendation of my sermons in the Puri- tan the other day, finishing off with the suggestion that proh- ably a good drubbing had done me good, — in other words, whipped me in ? It quoted from two sermons to show this, one of which was written twelve years ago, and the other twenty-three ! However, I do dare to think that I am grow- ing more adequately and more Christianly true. And, in just that way, I am brewing now a new heresy, which, if God spares my life, I shall certainly give to the world, even if I must die in the smoke of it. Of all this when Ave meet, and more. I am, as ever, yours, H. Bushnell. In a July paper we find the following publislied statement and correspondence : — "The North Congregational Church have unanimously voted to call the Eev. J. Lewis Diman, of Fall Kiver, Mass., to be an associate pastor, or colleague, of Dr. Bushnell, whose health has become so infirm as to prevent his further preaching for the present. "A committee has been appointed to notify Mr. Diman of the action of the church and society. Whether he Avill accept the call will soon be seen. "In connection with this subject, we append the following corre- spondence between the members of that church and their pastor: — "Hartford,May 17, 1858. " Rev. Horace Bushnell : "Beloved Pastor, — Desiring in some way to embody and express the feelings and wishes of this church and society respecting yourself and ourselves in the peculiar and trying situation in which we are placed, as pastor and people, by reason of your present feeble health, we are moved to write you this letter. We desire to encourage and comfort you, to remove from your mind all care and anxiety, and co- operate with you in such measures as may be thought best for the restoration of your health. To this end we would as- sure you of our united affection and sympathy, of our ardent attachment to this church and society, and our sincere and unanimous wish tliat the pastoral relation so long and profit- ably sustained may be, under any circumstances, continued. . . . 416 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. And while we earnestly pray God to give you health, and restore you again to those daily ministrations so pleasing to you and profitable to us, we would also thank him for what he has already enabled you to accomplish in the temporal and spiritual benefits conferred by your ministry upon us and our families. We feel ourselves under a lasting debt of gratitude to God and obligation to yourself; and whether you are able to preach or compelled to be silent, to lead in our public worship or to be absent from our meetings, we still desire to call you our pastor, and to feel that this relation, which has existed for a quarter of a century, will cease only at your death. " Signed by all the members of the church and society. " Hartford, June 15,1858. "NoEMAN Smith, A. M. Collins, and Others : "Deak Beetheen and Feiends of the Noeth Chuech and Society, — I have been hoping to make some public answer to the note bearing your unanimous signatures, of the 17th of May, but my opportunity is delayed, and may be for some time to come. I cannot tell you what emotions I feel in reading this roll of names, affixed, in unanimous consent, to such terms of affection, and the tender of such pledges as your letter contains. Could 1 know that my God w^ill ac- cept my ministry as you do, and give me a seal of his divine approval as clear and free, I would ask no more. And it is just because I am less confident of this that I am moved so tenderly by so great a partiality in you. It seems to be a very simple and obvious matter of justice that a disabled minister, who has worn out all his best powers in serving his people without enriching himself, should not be deserted by them. But the difficulty is that we are commonly conscious of so many neglects, defects, false motives, and only formal fulfilments, that claims of justice are very much out of the question ; and we are apt to be considering rather by what conditions of helplessness and desertion our good Father may well enough be preparing to chasten us. Thus it is that I accept your good-will ; not because I discover in it your sense REPLY OF THEIR PASTOR. 417 of honor and justice (which I knew as well before), but as a token that nij God is willing to let you exercise forbearance towards me, and cover my defects "with the generous mantle of your Christian affection. What, then, can I do more fitly, or how express more truly the sensibility your kindness stirs in my heart, than to go apart into the secret shadow of God's presence and ask him to crown these outward tokens and pledges of yours, by adding his own forgiveness. Here, too, as my more direct ministry is suspended — or if possibly it is not to be resumed — let me wait before him, asking his dear blessing on my faithful and ever -dear flock. The Lord bless you by name, yon and your children ; give you in yonr hearts the nches of his word ; keep you in holy unity with each other; deliver you more and more completely from this present evil world ; conform you more and more fully to the great image of his Son ; and give it to be the crown of our blessing as pastor and joeople, that we are gath- ered home together at last, to the greetings and common recollections of a renewed and eternally perfected union in Christ. '' In strongest bonds of love and confidence, I am your pastor, IIoEACE Bushnell." Greatly to the regret of Dr. Bushnell and the church, the Ilev. Mr. Diman declined the call ; and no other choice was made, in part because Dr. Bushnell became convinced that the colleague relation was one for which his active habit dis- qualified him. The " Sermons for the New Life " were very cordially re- ceived in all quarters, and that volume has doubtless been more widely read than any other of his, and with more of simple gratitude for its religious guidance and instruction. There was no complaint heard of its theology. The follow- ing significant letter is pleasant to read : — Cambridge, September 8, 1858. Dear Brother Bushnell, — As I once regarded myself called on, with others, to write in opposition to sentiments 418 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. you had published, a sense of duty equally now constrahis me to perform a more grateful task. I have been reading your " Sermons for the New Life." I need scarcely say that no opinions I have yet met in them contravene my belief of the teachings of Scripture. But this negative statement refers to the past. I thank you for writing and publishing these Discourses. They occujiy a ground of supreme importance, which I have no recollection of traversing under the guidance of any other teacher. ... I regret not having earlier known the style of your ministrations at home ; for I unfortunate- ly knew you only through those Discourses which presented views contrary to my conceptions of Gospel doctrine. May God furnish you with abundant grace still to proclaim that ever-blessed Gospel which you so forcibly exhibit. Your affectionate fellow-servant, Edward JS^. Kiek. To Dr. Bartol. Hartford, October 25, 1858. My deae Beothee, — I meant to have thanked you sooner for your Address at Cambridge. I think it is the richest and most vigorous thing you have done. It has the merit, also, of being profoundly true in certain leading aspects. But there are matters in it which I want to quarrel with a little, such as your very unjust assumption that you alone propose to liold the Unity. Every orthodox man proposes the same, only some take up views of their Trinity which to your and my conception involve a real tritheism. You seem to assume that Trinity, such as you qualifiedly acknowledge, is a human invention, to be finally overreach- ed and antiquated. This I very much doubt. Much more likely is it to me that our human limitation, as finite, requires it, and always will, — that the infinite Unity becomes relation- al, and eternally will, through it. I must also protest against your classing " trinity " with "idolatries," "mythologies," and the like. You cannot do it with a just respect to Scripture. But the grand central truth of the Address is a truth beau- tifully, strikingly set forth; so great a thing is it, requiring PUBLICATION OF "NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL." 419 SO mucli macliinery, and so great strain of thought, to recog- nize and receive the Unity. I will send you my new book in a few days. Love to all. Yours truly, H. Busiinell. The book which had been so long the subject of his most profound and patient study, that for the sake of which he be- lieved his life had been spared, the greatest work which had yet been given him to do — "Nature and the Supernatural" — was now at last ready. He felt that it struck a new key, and w\as the best contribution he could make to the thought of the world. ISTaturally he was most anxious to know how it was received, and what thinking men would make of it. He was like one who drops a pebble into the ocean, and waits to see the circles spread from that point outward. Seeing and hearing nothing, for the fall was into deep waters, he wrote once to Dr. Bartol, asking what w\as said in Boston, — " Bos- ton above all," — and again, in answer to him, he wrote once more : — Hartford, December 3, 1858. My deae Begthee, — I really hope you did not think I was weak enough to be wishing for some Boston commenda- tion the other day. I wrote you only to find what they say, be it good or evil. I have such perfect confidence in the ar- gument of my book that I can bear anything. I cannot even conceive the onset that will shake me. Still, I am human (that is, a fool), and wanted to know what the word may be. This morning you tell me that you are going to review. Don't do it for my sake ; and if joxi do it, do not spare me because I am your friend. Understand that I have Mdiole cargoes of conceit, and lay on. . . . What I say of charity and liberty is in this view. Not that every man who calls himself a liberal, or rejoices in the epi- thet, is therefore off the balance. He is only on the way to be, and, holding on under that flag, he certainly will be. There is a certain under-force in words, which many make no account of, and which yet is too strong to be permanently re- sisted by anybody. Thus there is a loosing element in the 420 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. tjjDG of the word liberal. I found it having finally an effect on me which I did not like, and I made up my mind that charity was good enough for me ; wondering not a little that Jesus, so abundant and free in the charities of his life, had yet the more than human wisdom to assume no airs of liber- alism. JSTo man or denomination of men can make a flag of that word, I am perfectly certain, without being injured by it. The under-force of it would finally move mountains. I want you to think nothing of me, and everything of truth. I don't ask you to be liberal to m.e ; I am not so much as that to myself. God give you the truth, and then the heart to say what belongs to truth. Yours ever, Horace Bushnell. In later letters, written after reviews had begun to come in, we find such bits as these: — "I will try to comfort my- self in the hope that I am about right when you, on one hand, set me down as the demolisher of nature, and the New Englander complains, on the other, that I defer too much to nature, and am too much under her power." And again : — " It is really hard times with a poor fellow. The Neio Englander tries me all through by the New Haven the- ology, and Dr. James makes me a ninny for being in the New Plaven theology. About everything said on one side is thrown back on the other, and I am pelted all round. Give my persecuted love to the dear c[uiet house of the B 's." But this was only a humorous attempt to make a victim of himself. His real and unchanging feeling was expressed, at a little later time, in a letter to Mr. Goodwin : — " My day has not yet come, and will not till after I am gone. So, by a kind of foolish conceit, it may be, I contrive to think. I should fare better if I would get up a school or sect, or I'aise a party of ites^ have a publication, etc. But the work I am called to do moves slowly, and yet it moves." Perhaps that is still true. It may be, even now, too early to say what the book has accomplished. Nor is that neces- sary. ' It is known wherever Horace Bushnell is known, and speaks for itself, better than any voice can speak for it. But HIS rOETIC AND PRACTICAL FACULTIES. 421 this one thing we may permit ourselves to say, not so much of the book as of its author. His subject being the reconcili- ation of reason and faith, of science and revelation, of nature and the supernatural, we shall perceive, on a little reflection, that he was prepared by nature for a free range in both these spheres as few men have been. The imaginative and the practical faculties were rarely balanced in his organization, and the whole training and education of his life, from earliest years, had been such as to bring out and cultivate both sides. Nature was his school-mistress, and he early tested the rigor of her laws by a multitude of practical exjjeriments. But a devout and loving mother enveloped the tender soul of his infancy in a spiritual atmosphere, till the fledgling imagi- nation could grow its wings and make ready for flight. In college he turned first with avidity to the study of natural science, and yet he only fell in love with philosophy when he found he could transmute it into poetry. The same was true of his work in life. A glance lifted from one of his books and resting in pleasant survey upon Bushnell Park, would easily take in its twofold meaning. And thus, as a teacher of religious truth, his every instinct and mental habit led him to make reason the willing servant of imagination. His belief was firm that science and revelation might together scale the heights of all mysteries, exploring and discovering a whole upper world or universe of nature and the super- natural. Working up to this time under the strong impulse of a purpose, to him all -important, he had performed an im- mense amount of labor, hardly conscious of the physical ex- penditure he was making. Now the ebb-tide had begun to flow. During the ensuing winter his symptoms were worse than they had ever been, and he was unable to "preach. The Eev. C. D. Helmer occupied his pulpit for several months, and took upon him most of the work of the parish. Dr. Bushnell was at home, as quiet as it was in his nature to be, and finding his chief recreation in riding and driving a spir- ited little black horse which had just come into his posses- sion. Bobin proved the best of friends, both intelligent and 422 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. sympathetic, and as full of pluck as liis owner. Rides were taken on very cold days ; and sometimes Kobin tempted his master to stay out in the wintry weather till he was chilled through, and so none the better for his exercise. Xo imjior- tant writing was on hand, but a gleam of something yet before him to be done fell upon him through the clouds, and cheered him on. On New-year's-day he wrote, with the greetings of 1S59, to a friend, " I think the day is at hand when something can be done for a better conception of the work of Cln-ist. Here is the great field left that I wait for grace and health to occupy." PARTING WORDS. 423 CHAPTER XX. 1859-1860. LEAVING HARTFORD.— MINNESOTA. As the spring came on, and no gain was made in health, it became apparent to Dr. Bushnell that the time had come when he could no longer feel it right to hold his place as pastor of the North Church. In April he sent in his resig- nation, and insisted on its being accepted, in spite of the urgency of his people that he should reconsider, or consent to retain his connection with them in some partial way. He made his plans for breaking up his home, to leave Hartford for a time, and early in July spoke his " Parting Words " to his people. The text, — " Weep not for the dead, neither be- moan him ; but weep sore for him that goeth away ; for he shall return no more, nor see his native country," — was the prelude to a dirge such as no other sorrow had drawn from him. " The hand of God is upon me, and I must go. I have struggled long ■with this dark necessity, and you on your part have also detained me. Were I dislodged by you, I should probably go with greater pains and fewer regrets. It is even a part of my happiness that I can go wdth these regrets upon me. They are heavy enough, indeed, to create a pain, but the pain were much heavier without them. I perceive as distinctly beforehand as I can at any future time that when I am finally separated from this dear flock, who have been the home of my heart for so many years, I shall be sick and weary, and look back, with longings not to be suppressed, on these pastorly works and cares, these answering words and faces left behind. ... " You have kindly urged me to stay with you, and have generously offered to have me as a burden, when you could not have me any lon- ger as an effective pastor and servant. You have even claimed it as your right to repay in this manner what you have generously agreed to consider a debt fairly incurred. But the sense of being a burden, and living as a pensioner, you can readily see, might, to persons of a certain temperament, be insupportable. I acknowledge it is so to me ; 28 424 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. not because I distrust your constancy in such pledges, but because it in- volves the being consciously a drawback on your prosperity as a congre- gation, Avhich it has been the habitual study of my life to advance. Your interest plainly requires me to be gone, and obediently to that I go. . . . "I ought, perhaps, to say that it is not merely to gain a lengthened lease of life that I am induced to make this trjdng sacrifice. If I had nothing to live for, I certainly would not wish to live a day longer. But I am encouraged in the hope of being so far recovered in health that I may prosecute, in a careful way, objects and themes of study that api^ear to me to have no secondary importance. I hope to support a fractional ministry by the press, when I cannot the full routine of the pastoral of- fice. In this hope I consent to go into exile, though to sever these ties and tear myself away costs me a struggle which I will not trust myself to describe ; a struggle which I try to compose, by indulging the further hope that I may yet return to Hartford, and here may close my days. My dear people I cannot have again ; they are mine no more ; but it will be something, if I may, to die among them and be finally lodged, as a resurrection guest, in the dust of a city whose people I have loved the more that I have tried to serve them, and have experienced at theii- hands so much of confidence, good-will, and forbearance. . . . " As confidence begets love, and love begets returning love, we have grown together in a kind of conjugal understanding, and felt community of life and character, such as seldom is known in the happiest of pastoral relations. With you thus for twenty-six years, in all the tenderest issues and subtlest windings of your life ; by you in your disasters and troubles, and in your holidays of success ; close enough to you to feel the touch of your anxieties and tremblings for your children, and the throb of your private thanksgivings on account of them ; at your weddings ; by you in your sick-chambers and your funerals ; with you in your struggles under and with and out of your sins ; sometimes crossing you a little and sometimes a little crossed by you, — with no other effect than that pulling the cord has tightened it, — in this manner my ministry among you has been a kind of course in trust and well-experimented aff"ection, a good element for courage and growth, an element, at once, of stimu- lus and rest for the heart. . . . " The end is now come. This day's sermon is the last of my ministry with you. The really sad thing with me is that my experiment with you is ended. I look back on you now as a ship looks back on a receding shore. . . . The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all : in this, Farewell." To Dr. Bartol Hartford, July 4, 1859. My dear Friexd, — Your " Key to the Kingdom '' fits the lock, I most certainly believe. I have read it with delight ; LETTERS. 425 nothing else for a long time with so much. Everything is admirably put, and it cannot but have an excellent as well as powerful effect. The only fault I find with it is that now and then your wits are too nimble, zigzag, too chain-lightning- like, for us slow mortals to keep up with you. But it is a noble sermon, and will do good. The only distrust I have of it is that, when you come to show the way of arriving at this " consciousness of God," you will too nearly hold that we have it already, and that we come to it by no arrival at all. The arrival out of a sin -state, the grand, new- creating, all- transforming discovery, the being born into it, — will you make room for it, or will you be too shy, in the Boston fash- ion, of sin, the dark, wild, terrible, world -desolating fact of Plato and Paul ? I took my leave of my people last Sunday, and am gather- ing up my affairs to be off. I shall go the last of this week or the beginning of next. Give my best love to Mrs. B. and L. When shall I see them again? You will always be a bright spot to me. Yours ever, Horace Bushnell. Before the day of departure came, his people gathered about him with increasing tenderness, and a lingering care for his welfare that grew as the opportunities diminished. What they would have gladly done for him he had not per- mitted them to do. But to make some generous provision for his future was still in their power, and this they quietly agreed among themselves to do. The result was a gift of ten thousand dollars, offered as he went, and unhesitatingly accepted as the genuine offering of their love. Detroit, July 14, 1859. My ever-deae Wife, — You see that I am so far on my way. I arrived here yesterday about one o'clock p.m., all in good keeping. The night part of the journey was really the best. I slept a great many sleeps, one or two of them rather big ones, so that I was in good case to go on at the Bridge in the gray of the morning. I fell in with an old college acquaintance in the street last 426 LIFE OF HOliACE BUSHNELL. evening, and with him I took a long stroll, saw the lions, and called on the cousins. I find them to be all nice people, in high estimation here, one of them a judge of the Supreme Court. AVith these lives the old lady-mother, about seventy- five years old, clear-witted, crank, and smart as steel. I had not seen her before, since I was a mere child, but had always a strangely fond feeling, older almost than memory, for the good Aunt Lois. Is it true or not, that the feelings have a memory, older and deeper, even, than the intelligence ? And what a mixture it is when these old, lingering un-evanes- cences steal in, among, and through the fresh love of to-day, enveloped all, and eternized by the all-time love of God ! . . . Milwaukee, July 17, 1859. I arrived here on Friday at one p.m., striking the Lake at sunrise, and having a nice cool passage across. It was even so cold that I could not stay on the fore-deck with my blanket- shawl, and so hot on landing that the epithet suffocating might be used as a cooler. I like this Milwaukee much ; it is one of the finest of all the new cities of the West. ... I am thinking all the while of the undecided things left behind, and wanting to hear that they turn as I wish. Robin, dear fellow, the house, etc., when I get these all disposed of and finally set right, I shall feel more like being a " certain manP They trouble me now, because of the feeling that they must trouble you. And yet, what a fool am I, when I know so well that God will always take care of us. Looking back over the spaces now marked off by this separation, what do I see but that God has done everything for me, and I nothing for myself ! . . . I ought in such an experience to be quite easy as regards the rest of the chapter still to come. If I were an atheist I should call myself one of the fortunate men. Be- ing a Christian, I can use a term dearer and more signifi- cant,— child of Providence. That child let me be to the end. Why should I send my love to you dear ones at home, when I am so much with you myself? He reached St. Paul, the objective point of his journey. THOUGHTS ON TEACHING. 42Y on the 18th of July; but happening to go on soon to St. Anthony, he was led to tarry there, and make it his head- quarters. St. Anthouy, August 1, 1859. My dear Daughter, — . . . You must make up your mind to have a complete mastery of everything you teach, and then to really teach it, ^. . Clifton Springs, April 12, 1861. Dear Brother W , — It is really good to hear you speak again, and, above all, to testify, as you do, to God's faithful- ness in the helps he gives you, and the advances he allows you to make. I was blessed in your new anodyne, — not in the use of it, for I generally can sleep, at least when I have not been doing myself wrong in over-exertion, but in the fact, thus proved to you, that God has new gifts, or special or pe- culiar gifts, for each man's wants. Why should not the art of sleep be made a Christian attainment as well as anything else ? What a beauty have you found in the promise, " He givetli his beloved sleep !" And he has not done giving you good things, my brother. He has a great many more in his treasury, and of different kinds. I expect to hear that you are getting hold of them, and being always enriched by them. It seems to be a very small thing, in such a connection, to speak of riches ; and yet there are how many, even of those who take the Christian name, who cannot understand that you are a rich man, and sometimes wonder a little that such an industrious, honest man as you, and withal so much of a Christian, is yet so poorly rewarded ! They cannot well con- ceive you as being the best rewarded, richest, fullest of all the rich people, — having most of wealth closest to your heart, most abundant in the feeling. Well, God be thanked that he has favors, riches, fulness of blessing of these better kinds to give, and that such as will may have them. I have sometimes seemed, this winter, to be getting a FINAL EETURN TO HARTFOKD. 451 Sirring, and I certainly have been let into some wider past- ures of God's truth. Every now and then I seem to get hold of Christ and his work at some deeper point, where I am let farther in ; and when it is so, I seem to be stronger and better. That I am raised and blessed in feeling is a mat- ter of course. But I should hardly dare to say that I make all the jDrogress which I seem at such times to be making. My devil is a devil of invention, ingenuity, discovery; and perhaps he is none the better sort of devil that he is willing to amuse me in schemings of religion or religious truth. And yet it would be wrong, I think, to give him credit for some of the better things that are opened to me. They come, I am sure, from a better source, and I must render the due praise to their author by a tender acknowledgment of Ilim and his goodness. I am sorry to hear that the dear church is not as much alive as it should be. But the dark days, you know, are the faith -times. When we can see, it is easy to believe, only there is no faith in believing. With many thanks for your letter, I am yours in truth, H. B. And now the day of experiments was indeed over, and he came back to settle down in " old Hartford," but by no means to "a w'eary drag of waiting, do-nothing, and ennuis The busy hours which closed the working day were centred all in the dear home, for so many years the j)ole-star to which, in all his wanderings, his compass was ever turning. It is good to think of him as there, and to recall the associations of that spot as clustering about his figure, the life and mean- in o- of them all. 452 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. CHAPTER XXII. HOUSEHOLD RECOLLECTIONS. Looking back upon the long course of events, now linked in the chain of history, a throng of those undefined impres- sions, sliglit, significant facts and tender recollections -which belong to the sacred circle of home, come crowding in, claim- ing their place among the worthy belongings of the life. I will therefore, without ceremony, make way for them, and, for convenience' sake, drop into the simpler form of the first person. The memories of childhood, however rich their colors, are so shadowy in form that it is most diflicult to reproduce their images, and make them distinct to other eyes. I might as well try to analyze the blue sky which spanned the narrow horizon of the home-garden, as to attempt to resolve into its elements the overarching fatherhood which sphered my child- ish days. The blue dome itself seemed to my thought not more comprehensive, high and pure, than my fatlier's nature; and I looked up to it with the same free reverence, and with neither more nor less of questioning analysis. But there are delightful facts which remain, and may be given, even though they lose, in the telling, that rare aroma which floats about my memory of them. First among my recollections of my father are the daily, after-dinner romps, not lasting long, but most vigorous and hearty at the moment. N'o summit has ever seemed so com- manding as his shoulder, where we rode proudly, though sometimes carried about at what seemed a dangerous pace. Thanksgiving-day was always a day of special and rare frolic. After the sermon had been given, and the turkey and pump- kin-pie were disposed of, father and children joined in a PLAYFULNESS. 453 unique and joyons celebration, whose main feature was the grand dance, in the course of which my father would occa- sionally electrify the children by taking a flying leap over their heads. Those who had wrestled with the knotty heads of the morning's discourse, to the subsequent detriment of their dinner, would have been amazed could they have seen the joyful antics by which the minister promoted digestion. The frolic sometimes reached a mad pitch, but in it my fa- ther never seemed less dignified than in the pulpit, and we always realized that it was an honor to have him play with us. A playful use of the faculties seemed ever to present its ideal side to him, and it was thus that he joined with his children " in the free self-impulsion of play, which is to fore- shadow the glorious liberty of the soul's ripe order and at- tainment in good." Thus he made of our childhood " a para- dise of nature, the recollection of which behind us might im- age to us the paradise of grace before us." It was while watching the play of his own children with a graceful kitten that he conceived the idea which animates his Work and Play ; and in the same manner he drew from his own home experience the child-loving chapter on " Plays and Pastimes," in his Christian Nurture. Fun was one element of his play- fulness, constantly bubbling over from the deep spring of his most earnest thought, sparkling in unexpected places, and ever refreshing the long and dusty stages of life's journey. He was no story-teller or professed wit ; but the droll side of a subject was always peeping out at him, and he let it flash from his speech along with his more serious conceptions, as if it had a right to be there. Twenty years of ill-health did not quench this light, nor, even at death's door, extinguish it. In one thing only did we ever find him unkind, and that was in his treatment of our dolls. Such was his respect for human nature, even " in its ruins," that he could not bear to have its dignity insulted by anything that seemed to him like an effigy or caricature of humanity. The sight of a doll or a monkey was abhorrent to him, and he could not restrain his expression of the disgust thus awakened. The organ-grinder with his monkey was sure to be ordered ofi 454: LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. peremptorily, and woe to the doll wliicli lay in his path ! It was in this direction only that he impulsively indulged a purely instinctive feeling, and here not even his regret for the wounded feelings of the children could keep him within the bounds of his usual considerateness. Summer mornings and their dewy freshness are forever associated with him. The reveille which waked us from healthy slumber was often the brisk whetting of his scythe. Many a time have I risen, to watch him from the window, as he put in practice still his early theory of " making the cross frictions correct each other." lie swung his scythe easily, cutting rapidly a broad, clean swath. Another labor which roused us to matin protests was his favorite pastime of cut- ting down a tree. The sharp ring of the axe proved him, in- deed, no bungler, but he loved, alas ! too well, its mettlesome sound. Before its ruthless strokes went down the silver pop- lar, because it sent up so many shoots through the turf ; the catalpa, because it was crooked and its pods disfigured the ground ; the black alder, which was out of place near the front -door; the hawthorn, the tulip, the English oak, the N^orway maple, the hemlock, and many a lusty tree beside. He tried, but all in vain, to console the children by putting the sundial on the stump of the last victim. There were, in- deed, too many trees about the house. He had planted them all himself, but their growth had been unexpectedly rapid, and the axe was needed. One, a straight young hickory, and a favorite with him, was long spared, though too near the dwelling ; and among our earliest recollections is that of his showing us how the swelling of " the papooses' feet," as the Indians call the young hickory buds, is, according to their saying, a sign that spring has come. That Avas the season of corn-planting, and all the delights of laying out the garden, where he worked most industriously on spring days, as well as in the early mornings of summer. It was then his habit to rise very early, and to work for an hour or two in his gar- den before breakfast, barefooted and roughly dressed. "Work done, he took a heroic shower-bath, made a neat toilet, and appeared in the shady breakfast - room with smooth locks FAMILY PRAYERS AND MUSIC. 455 (they were usually, at other times, the reverse of smooth), and with a cheerful, composed mien, as he conducted the family prayers. I have the most peaceful and sacred recol- lections of those prayers on sunny summer mornings, when all was still and clean in the well-ordered room, and no sound broke upon the praying voice but the songs of birds. Some- times we sung at family prayers, and I can almost hear now the deep tones of the bass voice in Ileber or some other fa- vorite tune. " By cool Siloam's shady rill " was in perfect harmony with the early coolness of a June morning ; and so was another of his favorites, " Oh cease, my wandering soul, on restless wing to roam." "Blind Bartimeus" he sung to please the children. And, later on, what a resource in the family was his sacred music, and with what fervor would he join his strong bass to his daughter's treble in, " Eise, my soul, and stretch thy wings ;" or, still better," Who is he that comes from Edom?" with the tunes to which Greatorex has set those hymns in his excellent collection ! Xo one who went to church at the " Old North " will forget how often he gave out " Love divine, all love excelling," or with what uncon- sciousness he joined heartily in the singing of it. But he loved music of all kinds, and often came down from his study to table with the question on his lips, " What is that new air you have been singing V or with some expression of pleasure at a good selection. Beethoven was his favorite composer, and, in the grand simplicity of that great master,- he found a fit refrain for his deepest thoughts. In his writ- ings a musical ear often appears in the harmony and rhythm of a sentence, where feeling, strong or tender, swayed his pen. At breakfast the daily paper became, through him, the epit- ome of the world to us all. He was not one of those ab- sorbed and silent readers of gossip who, after an hour spent over the list of casualties and murders, hand you the paper with a yawn, and the assurance that there is nothing in it. He brought to the reading all his resources, — his thought on social philosophy; his knowledge of geography, chemistry, and geology ; his love of adventure, of mechanics, of archi- 30 456 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. tectnre, and of engineering in its various brandies; and throwing liis own light on every subject, evolved from the daily telegrams a fascinating panoramic view of the world's life for the past twenty-four hours. Under his magic insight the most commonplace events assumed an unlooked-for mean- ing, and took their place in relation to all other events and histories. He had no unrelated facts. In all matters per- taining to our national welfare his patriotism was ever on the alert, and he saw on the horizon " the cloud no bigger than a man's hand," which to other eyes had hardly yet be- gun to threaten storm. At the dinner-table he came to us from his thought-world, from the writing of sermons or books; and then he was no more of the outward, but of the subjective and inward life. Then his every hair stood on end, electric with thought ; his eyes had a fixed and absent look, and he forgot the name of a potato. His mind being far away, the present body fed it- self hastily, and with little note of food or drink. It was no wonder that he experienced tlie horrors of dyspepsia. But for the enforced exercise of the afternoon, he would have been earlier the victim of untimely brain-work. Never was there such a companion for a walk or a drive, though he was a very careless driver. He saw twice as much as most people do out-of-doors, took a mental survey of all land surfaces, and kept in his head a complete map of the physical geography of every place with which he was ac- quainted. He knew the leaf and bark of every tree and shrub that grows in New England; estimated the water- power of every stream he crossed ; knew where all the springs were, and how they could be made available; engineered roads and railroads ; laid out, in imagination, parks, cemeter- ies, and private places ; noted the laying of every bit of stone wall, and the gait of every horse ; buildings, machinery, the natural formations of geology, — nothing escaped him. And the charm of it was, that whether he was planning some im- provement or observing some natural beauty, it was all done easily, while he cut a cane from a roadside thicket, or brushed the flies from his horse. A DEFECTIVE MEMORY. 457 In tke parental relation, he was, without effort or self-asser- tion, possessed of an unbounded influence. Always amiable and gentle at home, he rarely reproved, and gave few com- mands. I think I can still count on the fingers of one hand every occasion on which I received from him a real repri- mand. Then every word told, — for words were few, — and brought a burning shame for the wrong. It was not the voice of his personal authority, but Eight and Truth incar- nate, which spoke through him, and spoke always to a con- victed conscience. I cannot now recall a single harsh or unkind deed of his at home, unless I except the above-men- tioned cruelty to our dolls. He was singularly obliging and considerate, and never called any one to wait upon him, pre- ferring for himself and his children a habit of personal inde- pendence and self-help. Even after he had been many years an invalid, he would not allow any one to carry up the wood for his study fire, and would arrive at the top of the second flight of stairs with his armful, panting, but still rejoicing in his victory over nature. He encouraged his little girls to help him in many a piece of domestic work, such as raking up the door-yard, or piling wood in the cellar; and if he was overlooking our good old AYilliam, would generally do rather more than half the work, finding that easier than to show some one else how to do it. "William, that isn't straight." " And please, sir, I don't know what is straight." And then, rather than try to make a geometrical definition of a straight line clear to William's willing but somewhat dark- ened understanding, the master would seize the spade and make the straight line himself. It must be allowed that his memory was of the poorest. Not only did the willingly taken orders for the butcher or grocer occasionally slip out of mind among so many more worthy thoughts, and letters, considered at home of vital im- portance, tarry for days, unmailed, in his pockets ; but he was liable to yet more inconvenient lapses of memory concerning sermons, and handkerchiefs, and notices on Sunday mornings. More than once has he been forced to descend from the pul- pit to borrow a handkerchief at his family pew, or to send 458 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. home a reluctant child for the missing sermon. On «tne oc- casion he did not discover that he was minus a sermon, un- til tlie service had already reached the stage of the second hymn. He brought me the door-key, and told me to make all haste to bring the missing document from liis study-table. It was a warm July afternoon. Heated already by burning blushes as I stole down the aisle, I sped on the wings of the wind from the church door, and found, to my great surprise and relief, the right sermon in the right place. With it I tore back again to church, and might perhaps have run up the pulpit stair with it, driven by the fear that I was too late, had not a kind gentleman, dubiously waiting at the door for results of my mission, relieved me of it and given me time to take breath. Thus it came to be the fashion to inquire every Sunday, before starting for church, whether the sermon and handkerchief were safe, and our good father, conscious of his shortcomings, submitted with meekness to be thus catechised by his children. We had also a comical feeling of responsi- bility for the length of his sermons, and trembled when Dr. C , in the front pew, loudly clicking his oft -consulted watch on the stroke of twelve, settled himself for a comfort- able nap. When listening to his preaching as a child, I naturally thought more of him and of how he looked, than of what he said. I could not better suggest a picture of him than by words of his own, which he applied to anotlier: — "His brow hangs heavy over his desk, and the glow of his majestic face and the clear lustre of his meditative eye reveal the mighty soul discoursing wnth the inward oracle." When kindled by a strong thought, his whole face glowed with a spiritual beauty ; and sometimes, in moments of deep feeling, the tears Avould spring unbidden to his eyes, and brim over, as from a child's eyes, with a beautiful unconsciousness. How well I remember that nervous swing of the right arm, which set an exclamation -point to an important sentence! It expressed will, ardor, insistence, impulse, — all in one motion. He car- ried a truth home by the momentum he gave it. His voice was naturally a good and strong one, but he never learned to A LITTLE EXCURSION. 459 manage it well, straining it sometimes, not by loudness but by emphasis, and doubtless laying thus the foundation of bronchial trouble. I think that, in my childhood, I can re- member his subdividing his sermons more than he did later, and giving them a more formal shape. A little boy once complained to me, — a little girl, — "Your father said 'Sixth- ly,' and then he went back and said ' Secondly.' " This was indeed a grievous ground of complaint to a child who was impatiently waiting to hear " Seventhly and lastly." I recall with rare pleasure a little excursion on which we children were once taken by my father at a time when my mother was absent from home. He said one morning, be- fore breakfast, with the air of a school-boy out of school for a holiday, " Now, children, we are going on a picnic to Bol- ton. The train starts in about half an hour. Get ready." A hastily swallowed breakfast, a hastily seized basket of cookies for luncheon, a rush to the cars, and we were off. It was a glorious summer day. We had never been in that direction before. We looked for, and found, elysium on Bol- ton Mountain. We spent the day there, scrambling over rocky ledges, and browsing on huckleberries. We had no cup to drink from, and nothing to eat but our cookies and the fresh berries ; but all was sunshine and pure delight. I dimly recall an hour of dreamy rest at noon upon the hill- top, when my father's thoughts absorbed him for a time, and all was peaceful stillness. Wishing, later, to descend the steep eastern slope of the mountain, he took the youngest upon his" back, and plunged headlong through the underbrush, singing joyfully, as did the two who followed. We also explored the deep Notch through which a railroad-cutting had recently been made, and which was probably the objective point of the day to him. According to his ideas, the railroad had been laid out on a mistaken plan and the expensive cut through Bolton Notch was unnecessary. I believe he took the trouble to expound his ideas on that subject to his chil- dren, who were willing if not understanding hearers. We returned home, tired but jubilant, after a day of perfect, un- broken enjoyment. 460 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. In this connection I am reminded of tlie out-door life we sometimes led with him on the shores of tlie Xew Preston Lake, where he was fond of spending his summer vacations, and of reviving in declining years the pleasant memories of boyhood. He usually drove there from Hartford — forty-five miles — in one day, over the rough hills of Litchfield Count}^, starting in the very early morning, and stopping for a noon- ing by the way-side. I have often heard my mother speak with great pleasure of these journeys through a beautiful region of country, and of the charming little lunches, season- ed with intimate talk, by some sparkling brook. On one oc- casion, when accompanied by one of his daughters, and while lunching in a pretty spot near the road, where shade and a fine spring had invited them to rest, they were roused by the rattle of the Litchfield coach, loaded inside and out with passengers, presumably summer boarders taking their home- ward flight to the city. The young lady of the dinner-party was a little embarrassed at being thus surprised by the city public. Not so her father, who, spying an acquaintance on top of the coach, rose and enthusiastically waved the drum- stick of a chicken, shouting his friendly salutations, which were heartily returned by the company on the stage. Once settled comfortably with Deacon Hopkins, whose house overlooks the lake from its northern shore, we began a long series of rides, drives, and walks, always in sight of the loveliest scenery. Horseback rides with one of the daugh- ters he seemed always to enjoy ; and we compassed the lake many times on these excursions. Once, when I was riding with him on a rough mountain road, we met an old man in a wagon. My father hailed him by name, and meeting no recognition, but only a look of blank inquiry, said simply, as if he were still the boy whom he wished to recall, " Don't you know Horace Bushnell ?" The old man scanned him slowly, as if trying to reconstruct the boy out of the man, and at last answ^ered, with a quiet simplicity, like to that of the question, " Yes ; are you Horace V This answer pleased my father greatly. His old acquaintance had appar- ently never heard of him since he left New Preston in youth. VACATIONS AT NEW PRESTON. 461 and yet it was evident that tlie recollection of the boy awoke a cordial and kindly feeling in the old man, who, but for the slippery steepness of the rocky hill-side, would have liked to pause for a little friendly gossip over old times. For several summers' iishing upon Lake Waramaug, the constant companion, nay, the chosen comrade of Dr. Bushnell, was a boy of twelve to fifteen years, the son of an old friend whose family shared the house with us. The man who had grown gray in thought and the fresh boy seemed to recog- nize no division made by years. They were both boys in their sport, both men and equals in the intimacy of their friendship. In broiling sun or drizzling rain, they fished to- gether from one boat, always cheerful and contented in spite of all discomforts, if they could bring home a good string of fish, and especially exultant when a large bass hung from the end of it. This fishing was a daily occupation, the serious pursuit of the day, however they might dispose of the rest of tlieir time. They were never tired of it or of each other. One summer it became a custom for the household of friends assembled under the Deacon's roof to spend the sun- set hour of Sunday on the grass-plot close to the house, in conversation and discussion upon religious subjects. That the talk might not be too rambling, and so lose point, we took up the practice of dropping each our written question into my father's hat. From these he would pick out a few of the most suggestive, and start them for our discussion. AVe all said our say, — and very comical commentaries they often were, — leaving the final words to him. These words were few, and were generally meant, not to settle the ques- tions, but to help us to do so, if that were possible, or, at least, to think them out as far as we could. The wdiole household, including our host, the Deacon, and his family, took part in these talks, and enjoyed them heartily. One autumn, when we were about to leave New Preston, jny father said to his daughters, — " You may never be here with me again, and I want to take you to my old home and over the old farm." We went, and saw the stalwart maples before the door of the homestead, which he had himself 462 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. brought down as saplings from the mountain upon his shoul- ders and planted there. AVe drank of the delicious cold spring beneath a fine tree, where he used sometimes to take his nooning when at farm -work, snatching perhaps a little time for study as a seasoning for the dinner-pail. There was his boasted piece of stone wall, proof of the accuracy of his eye, as firm now as when he laid it fifty years ago. Each stone fits snugly in its place, the corresponding surfaces hav- ing come together as if by some law of hidden affinity. It is doubtful if he was ever as well satisfied with any of his writ- ings as he was with that stone wall. There, too, in the same field, if I mistake not, was the big bowlder, in the shadow of which he had once prayed in youthful doubt and distress, with, perhaps, some unconscious allusion to the " shadow of a great rock in a weary land," and whence, even in boyhood, his heart had exhaled in mist at sunrise the dew of its heav- enward aspirations. He spoke to us, as often before, of his good and wise mother, the notable housewife and care-taker, the discreet adviser and patient manager of wayward boy- hood. Yonder, on the hill, was the church, — the meeting- house, rather, — whither he used to trudge on Sundays at his mother's side, to listen to that old-time religious teaching, on whose "hard anvils of abstraction the blows of thought must needs be ever ringing." There, down in the hollow, was the dam which he built for his father's mill. The mill is long since gone to ruin, but the dam remains in good condition. Recollections crowded fast, and time was too short for all we would have liked to see. We were on our homeward way, and I believe it was indeed the last time I was ever there with him. During his years of failing health he always owned a horse, and many and great were the family excitements attending the sale of an old horse or the purchase of a new one. His oc- casional long absences from home in quest of health, during which he could not afford to keep a horse unused at home, made these changes somewhat frequent. His excessive hon- esty was certainly not good policy in dealing with horse-men. If his old horse had a fault or two, he did not content himself HIS SYMPATHY WITH YOUNG MEN. 463 with mentioning it, but dwelt upon liis failings and set tlicm forth in all lights, till he had left the unfortunate animal not a leg to stand upon. He once sold a horse to a good friend, as honest as himself, who, after trying old Eobin for a week or two, came to say that Dr. Bushnell had not asked enough for him, and generously handed over another hundred dollars.* If, on the other hand, my father was about to buy a new horse, his easily roused enthusiasm would lead him to speak so heartily in praise of the animal, that the owner would at once see an added value in him, and fix his price accordingly, No experience of these facts availed to alter my father's course at the next opportunity ; the temptation to say all he thought was too much for him ; nor would he consent to lim- it his freedom of speech out of any paltry considerations of policy. It was the same with horses as with theology — he was a little more than honest. One amiable peculiarity of his was his ready admiration for very young men of his own profession. No matter how slight the sapling, he saw hope in the growing tree, and had his encouragements and praise always ready. During his years of ill-health, men of every stamp, young and old, at various times supplied his pulpit for a Sunday. A thorough- ly matured man, who had tested all his powers, and perhaps elaborated his faith into a system, might fairly be judged and criticised as unfait accompli. If his belief had hardened into dogma, he might not find a sympathetic critic in the hearer who sat behind him in the pulpit. A man was apt, moreover, to be judged, first of all, by his legs and his man- ner of standing on them. He who could not stand straight and square upon his foundations, or who wriggled and twist- ed a body supported on weak, unsteady columns, found lit- tle favor in my father's eyes. But youth has infinite pos- sibilities, and his imagination revelled in the possible great- ness to be evolved from its chaos. At least, it was in this way only that we could account for his estimate of many * Robin outlived both of his fond masters, and departed this life, through an accident, in the summer of 1877, aged twenty-nine years. 464 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. young ministers. The most recent graduate of the divinity school, still floundering in things too deep for him, accept- ing and offering as equivalents for ideas the terminology of the schools, and struggling somehow to get expressed the thoughts he had but half thought, found in him a patient hearer and indulgent critic. AVe used to say that he was wont to attribute to the young speaker the thoughts which he had himself had leisure to think out during the service. Sometimes in his closing prayer he would, in a few living words, throw open and light up the subject with which his young friend had been skirmishing all the morning, and send home its truth and power to the heart of every worship- per. Then he would go home, kindled by the glow of his own thought, and believe that it was the 3'outli who had laid a coal upon the altar. In the case of young preachers of genuine promise there were no bounds to the generous sympathy with which he welcomed them to his own field of labor. Many of them have remembered this with grateful appreciation. At the same time, he had perhaps too little regard for the supersensitiveness of morbid youth. He liked a sensibility which was large and full -toned, and which re- sponded with harmonious vibrations to the touch of great in- spirations. But that kind of sensibility which is only a source of irritable suffering to the subject, he might pity, but could not understand. Going back again to a time of earlier recollections, we can well remember, as children, the period of controversy and theological combat when our father stood almost alone in his opinions, and was the object of attack on all sides. We dim- ly discerned that this wtis the heroic age in his history, and watched with childish awe the stages of the drama. The combat had doubtless its charms for him, and yet we could see how keenly he felt the hostility of old allies, and that he sustained his lonely position with fortitude but not with indifference. Solitude and suspicious avoidance were bitter to his social soul. I distinctly recall the solemn day when he was on trial before his own Association in Hartford. Two or three of his brother-ministers dined with him before go- HIS HOME-INFLUENCE. 465 ino; to tlie final and decisive meeting; of the afternoon. All were grave, and full of the morning's debate. My father wore a look of deep emotion and anxiety new to me. He dreaded the ordeal most sensitively, as I, a little child, could read on that usually fearless face. And he was fearless and unflinching still, — that I could see too, — but none the less suffering as only a strong man can. Did not our childish hearts beat high with mingled courage and dismay? And yet any one, even a child, watching him that day might have divined that his generous heart and unwavering purpose would ere long live down the dreaded, impending evil. He said once, referring to those days, that he was never tempted to hate but one man, and him only because he was a liar. He never spoke bitterly of his opponents, but he had no con- scientious scruples about a little harmless raillery. Of my father's paternal tenderness, shown daily in little ways, and sometimes, in rare moments, finding exquisite ex- pression, this is not the place to speak openly. It may be guessed what warmth he radiated, if we recall that luminous revelation of himself when he said, " It is the strongest want of my being, to love." Nor can we reveal the gentle, father- ly counsels, and the attractive personal religious talks, all the more prized because of their i-arity. In such conversations it was always the winning, never the compelling side of re- ligious experience, which he presented to us. In the light of such sacred revelations of himself, the life which he had been living before us day by day, year after year, was known by us to have its source, not in his own will merely, however high and fixed its purpose, but mainly in such inspirations as come from God himself. It was impossible to live with him and not recognize the freedom and spontaneity of his action. Every sacrifice was voluntary, and all his effort resembled play. And although this was more easily possible in a nat- ure which worked with the ease and power of his, yet he be- lieved, and we felt, that it was a living faith which made and kept him free. There is one incident in his life, to me most profoundly and exquisitely significant, of which he has left his own rec- ■iQQ LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. ord in his book on the Supernatural, beginning at page 486. I have my own recollections of it, which have recurred to me at intervals through all these succeeding years, with a con- stantly deepening impression of reverence. The circumstance was this : An old colored man, once a slave, whose face and attenuated figure have long been familiar in the lower streets of Hartford, and who had been for some time known to friends of ours as a man of somewhat remarkable religious experiences, called one day to see my father, and, learning that he was out, requested to be allowed to wait for him, as he had brought him " a message from the Lord." He was, of course, admitted, and I sat down with my mother to listen to his talk, having a young girl's sceptical curiosity about him. His conversation was a monologue, and related mainly to revelations and visions, which he believed to have been di- vinely granted to himself. He told us of seeing in his dream the ark of the Lord, and of how " a trail of glory kep' a-wind- in' out of it, an' a band ob angels was all about, an' de angels kep' a-cofnin' up an' a ketchin' hole ob de trail." Regardless of his interpretation of the vision, — for it had one, though I have now forgotten it, — I rejected it all as " the stuff which dreams are made of," and burned with silent indignation when at last the old man intimated that the message of the Lord for my father was a warning that he should disengage himself from the Park and other public matters, and de- vote himself altogether to work more distinctively religious. Should ignorance and superstition guide enlightened genius, with its many-sided gifts ? Would the Lord send such a mes- senger to such a man ? Surely, if there were a divine mes- sage for him, it would be whispered in the depths of his own Christian consciousness. How would my father receive an emissary of such pretensions ? Question soon and beautiful- ly answered ! He entered, and " Old Law " was briefly intro- duced, with some partial explanation of his errand. There was a moment for observing the contrast between the two men, placed by nature so widely apart in the scale of being. The old African, at his lean height of dilapidation, with his narrow skull and visionary aspect, had yet a dignity of bear- A SINGULAR MESSENGER. 467 ino- which expressed his sense of the importance of his er- rand. On the other hand, my father's clear-cut featm-es, alive with all the vital powers of a trained intellect, were softened now by an expression of tender deference, — of gen- tle and glad readiness to hear. With his equals, his greeting was wont to be one of quite unceremonious good-will ; but he received this humble and unaccredited messenger of the Lord with a most gracious courtesy. So might Abraham have welcomed the three angels as he sat at the tent-door in the heat of the day. I need not repeat, since my father has himself told the story, how the message was given. In his narrative the beauty of the incident is found in the lowly, heaven-sent messenger, but, to our eyes, a higher beauty was revealed in the humility and sweetness with which he was re- ceived. Doubtless my father recognized the ignorance and the visionary character which would have made the old man's individual opinion worthless. But no matter ! The voice of God might speak through this humble soul, — nay, seemed to speak in the eloquent pleading of his untaught tongue, — and he must listen and " prove whether it be indeed of God." And this was not merely the poetical impulse of a moment. The hint thus strangely given was worthy of his most serious thought. He weiglied the matter carefully before his own conscience, and made up his mind that for a time, while he was writing upon the most important theme which had ever opened itself to him, he should be wise to abstain from all outside work. He knew that his work for the Park was good work for him to do, and that it was no waste or misappropri- ation of his powers to devote them to matters of the public welfare. But the Park was secured. Other men might fin- ish it, and just now he felt that it would be better for him to yield himself entirely to the inspiration of his subject. He had the self-control to do so, and it is impossible to say how much of the strength of his best book may be due to this. And while I am speaking of that book, I am disposed to say here, upon my individual responsibility, what I might not elsewhere have the right to say, and in explanation of what 468 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. " tlie world has pronounced to be the weaknesses of its four- teenth chapter, on "Miracles and Spiritual Gifts not Discontin- ued," that nothing he ever did required the courage and the self-conquest which it cost him to write and give that chapter to the world. The unfolding of his great subject had been a willing task, in which his intellect had worked freely to its conclusions. But when he came to the application of his idea, he found certain supposed facts, unimportant and pue- rile in their character, except as they were related to his sub- ject, thrust upon his attention, and claiming, with their own and borrowed voices, their logical place in his statement. That the world would call them insignificant and old wom- en's tales, was nothing. Must he accept them ? Must he be- come the champion of these despised and rejected facts of faith? Their humble origin, and the indignities which men had heaped upon them, pleaded for them, and gave them un- due value in his eyes. Moreover, he felt that he ought to dare to apply his own theories, and stand by the results, even in extremis ^ and this, though it was obvious that, should this application fall, it would by no means carry the foundation principle with it. And so he consented to write what he must have known would be despised and ridiculed by a large part of the reason of our day ; what not only shallow and worldly, but many true and faithful minds would be prone to reject. It required, as I believe, real though unrecognized heroism to do it. But when all is said, there is nothing said which will make his image live again. One glimpse of his figure, as he walk- ed along the street with that long springy step of his, the cane swinging and pointing forward decisively as he went, would be worth it all. Or, if that were too slight ground for an acquaintance with him, the door of friendship even might be opened by a gleam of that penetrating smile which ever and anon illumined his grave face. Better still it would be to hear him talk for a moment in terse and picturesque phrase about the common things of life, a new -coined word or a sharply fresh suggestion revealing the original mind. But it was in family life that he shone the brightest. It is true GREATEST WHERE BEST KNOWN. 469 that those who live under the shadow of a mountain can see little of its proportions, but surely the dwellers on the moun- tain, who feed their flocks upon its pastures, or serve as guides to its summit, have a practical measurement of its greatness such as no distant vision can give. Let it, therefore, be no detraction from his magnitude that ray father Avas largest and most ideal to those wdio knew him in the nearness of family life and love. It is they who know most of his zest, his en- thusiasm, his inspirable faculty, of the wit and piquant fla- vor of his language ; of the lofty and refined purity of his feelings' and his habits, and his delicate considerateness for those who wei*e dear to liim ; of his great unexpressed and inexpressible tenderness ; of the reasoning faith which beheld the unseen. Well, he has taken them all with him, and v.-e shall never, in this life, know them any more. It is some- thing to believe that they eternally live and grow. 470 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. CriAPTEE XXIII. BY Er)%VIN P. FARIiKR. MINISTRY AT LARGE. 1861-1870. « Dr. Buslinell's Patriotinm and Hopefulness during the War. — His Ac- count of its Causes, and Interest in its Details. — Tribute to Major Camp. — Vacations at New Preston.— Writing "The Vicarious Sacri- fice."— Publication of Two Volumes. — Article on "Loyalty." — Letter of Consolation. — Escape from a Fatal Accident. — " Our Obligations to the Dead." — Visit to the Battle-fields.— Publication of "Vicarious Sacrifice." — Address on "Puljjit Talent." — WorshijD and the Diaco- xiate. — Letter to a Metaphysician. — Published Articles, especially "Building Eras." — The Adirondacks. — Reminiscences by the Kev, Joseph H. Twichell. — " Our Gospel a Gift to the Imagination." — "Woman Suffrage." — " God's Thoughts fit Bread for Children." — Preaching. — Work to obtain a Site for the State Capitol. — His Studies of the Outside World. — His Conversation at Meetings of Ministers. — The Monday Evening Club. — ^Flashes of Wit.— His Farewell to the Brethren of the Association. ' In simple readiness to serve the dear friends who have this memoir in charge, I undertake, at their request, to write some account of Dr. Buslmell's life in those later years when it was my inestimable privilege to be included in the circle of his most intimate ministerial friends. That life is so sacred in my memory that I feel more like singing its praises than tell- ing its story. And yet, could its story be adequately told, no better method of singing its praises could be devised. Xo mere report, however complete, of the eloquent words that came from his lips and from his pen, could tell that story. Underlying all its vocal music, the life itself flowed on in a broad, deep, continuous strain of manifold ministration and peaceful holiness — a song, as often without words as with them, and not to be described in words. YEARS OF "BROKEN INDUSTRY.' 471 That Christian quality of life which makes personal influ- ence penetrating, pervasive, and ennobling ; personal contact and communion cpiickening and invigorating ; and which is ever redolent of courage, comfort, and hopefulness, he pos- sessed in great abundance. One of the most remarkable things concerning him was that unconscious radiation of character which he was wont to call one's " personal atmos- phere." So distinctly and powerfully was this felt by all who came within its reach, that in reporting his death to a friend abroad, one wrote, " You will not And Hartford the same city on your return." This "personal atmosphere" of the man, so sweet and wholesome, no language can describe ; and yet, without some inbreathing of it, the story of his life must be a lifeless one. It should be remembered that, having been released from all jDastoral responsibilities, the course of his life was there- after a more private one, with only occasional public appear- ances, and therefore less marked with incidents that have a public interest. Its intercourses were also thenceforth pri- vate rather than professional, and more restricted, by increas- ing physical infirmities, within the bounds of intimacy. And yet, so far from being unharnessed and turned out of active service into the leisure of an idle invalidism, he was rather set at liberty from the narrow ways and downright burdens of a local pastorate, to enter upon what he called " a minis- try at large," wherein, by dint of unremitting industries, he wrought some of the greatest and most enduring works of his entire lifetime. The dedication of the volume, " Christ and His Salvation," to his friend Joseph Sampson, Esq., of JSTew York, will ena- ble us to look at these years of "broken industry" from his own point of view : Hartford, June 10, 1864. My deak Friend, — When resigning my pastorship, five years ago, you will remember that you put it before me to consider myself engaged now in a " ministry at large," serv- ing in it, by the pen, or by whatever method, according to the ability left me, the cause we both have made our own. In 31 472 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. this modified ministry, I have had the sense of a worthy and sacred charge upon me still as before, and in it, as I have oc- cupied, I seem also to have prolonged my life. This, with another volume on " The Yicarious Sacrifice," which is ready in due time to follow, are the principal fruit of my broken in- dustry. Without consent obtained, I venture to connect them with your name, as the spontaneous tribute of my true respect and strong personal friendship. Horace Bushnell. There are many still living who can distinctly remember the days of his earlier ministry in the North Church of Hart- ford, when his lithe and sinewy frame was quick with energy, an imperial beauty shone in his face, and a grand physical presence emphasized his eloquence. But to those who knew him only id these later years of sickness and infirmity, the at- tenuated frame and wasted face were j)athetically associated with all the hard-fought battles, splendid services, precious triumphs, and merited honors of former years, and they have invested him with something of that, veneration with which loving disciples regarded " Paul the aged " as he stood before them "bearing in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus." They have seen in him that sweetness and gentleness of a fiery spirit which only the ripening and mellowing jDrocesses of long experience in the Christian service could have devel- oped ; graces which were not the rich colors of such decay as fading leaves wear, or setting suns lay on the clouds, but rather like the " golden stain of time," whicli gives an inde- scribable beauty to some cathedraFs massive walls and glo- rious windows which formerly were only strong and fair. They have seen the " son of thunder " lying in Jesus' bosom, as the beloved disciple, who best divined the Master's secret and spirit. They have seen him, if not in younger moods of strong prophetic frenzy, yet in the higher states of a calm and apostolic inspiration, when there seemed to be almost a halo about his snowy head, and his undimmed eye lightened with strange fire, his thin face became as if transparent to a light that bnrnt on inward altars, and he spake as the Spirit 2:ave him utterance. If it is a loss not to have known him in A FIRST MEETING WITH IIIM. 473 the days of liis physical bloom and vigor, it would have been a greater loss not to have known him in the later days of his spiritual strength and glory. It was in the spring of 18G1, Avhen he returned home from a prolonged residence at Clifton Springs, that I first encoun- tered the man whose books I had read with avidity, for whose genius I had conceived an admiration, and of whose personal appearance I had formed a large, fair, benignant image. For fifteen years he had not been permitted to preach in the church of which I had recently become the pastor. Desirous alike of terminating the disgrace of such" an exclusion and of opening the way to some fellowship with a man so great and dear, I called upon him, at his house, to invite him to preach in my pulpit. My astonishment at his appearance was ex- treme. Instead of that large, fair, benign figure of my imag- ination, behold ! a slight, frail man, tapering from head to foot, whose gray hair was in fine disorder, whose luminous eyes fairly looked one through from under their shaggy brows, whose voice found utterance in short, brusque, pithy sentences, and whose restive, nervous manners jostled all the forms of conventional politeness. Not even his gracious sim- plicity and cordiality could quite recover me from the confu- sion of the moment ; but I soon retired, having received his acceptance of my invitation, and also an ineffaceable impres- sion of his individuality. The next Sunday morning he preached and prayed in the South Church, and the praj'ing was as wonderful as the preaching. To an offer of assistance he replied, " Take the service up to the prayer before the sermon. I prefer to whet my own scythe." The great event of the year 18G1 was the outbreaking of the war of rebellion. Always deeply interested in political affairs, and especially in the moral aspects of them, liis con- cern in the acts of secession, and in the warlike movements to which they led, was intense. His esteem of President Lincoln was emphatically pronounced ; and although, in the dark days that ensued, his confidence was sorely tried, he maintained, more steadily than most, his faith in the man whom God had raised up for the salvation of the country. 4:74 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. In a letter written at this period lie said : — " I thank God that I have been allowed to see this day. I would do it, even if we should be sorely beaten at first — nay, to the end. Bet- ter to have a country worthy of adversity than one that is subject to shame and just contempt. However, I do not think we have any such- consolations to look for. We must be victorious in the end." In several sermons preached and published during the war, Dr. Bnshnell gave wise and cheering counsel in days of darkness and depression. lie detected and exposed the real causes and momentous issues of the struggle. He maintained that while slavery was proximately responsible for the out- break, the deepest root of rebellion was that element in our political order which attempted to found and maintain a gov- ernment without moral ideas or moral authority. Tlie ser- mon which he preached in the North Church just after the battle of Bull Run, was largely taken up with showing how, under the influence of the Jeifersonian political philosophy, the moral ideas that constitute the only real basis and back- bone of government had been frittered away, until at length we found ourselves in nothing better than a copartnershij), without national authority or obligation. The spirit of loyal- ty had inevitably degenerated into a mere feeling of attach- ment. The essentially immoral habit of slavery accelerated this degeneracy, and out of these unhistoric theories and the demoralization they wrought the doctrine of State -rights emerged, in readiness to undertake any enterprises that should gratify pride or foster local interests. In other strains he taught the uses of adversity and sacri- fice. The true loyalty is never reached until the laws and the nation are made to appear sacred. Without shedding of blood there is no such grace prepared. There is one law of political and of spiritual salvation. "xVdversity will be our strength, and disappointments our arguments. Anything, that we may have a nationality, and a government, and a true loyalty burnt into the hearts of our children." But his interest in the great struggle was not confined to the principles and issues of it. He not only watched with HIS SKETCH OF MAJOR CAMP. 475 anxiety the smallest details of every campaign and expedi- tion, but forecasted operations in the field, and busied himself with all manner of planning and providing, here and there, as if burdened with a personal responsibility for the conduct of the war and the direction of armies. His enfjineerine;: talent and his conscious faculty of generalship were kept in contin- ual exercise under the inspiration of a patriotic enthusiasm that never rested nor doubted. He manifested a quick interest in the men M'ho gave them- selves to the cause, and especially in the young men whom he knew, watching their careers, rejoicing in the reports of their noble deeds, and hallowing the names and memories of those who fell victims in the sacrifice. To the biographer of Major Henry Camp, of Hartford, he sent, as a contribution to the memoir, the following letter : — It was my privilege to know this young patriot and soldier from his childhood up. The freshly vigorous, wonderfully lustrous, unsoiled look he bore in his childhood, made it con- sciously a kind of pleasure to pass him, or catch the sight of his face in the street. I do not recall ever having had such an impression, or one so captivating for its moral beauty, from any other child. And it was just as great a satisfaction to see him grow as it was to see him. I used to watch the progress of his lengthening form as I passed him, saying in- wardly still, " Well, thank God, it is the beautiful childhood that is growing, and not he that is outgrowing his child- hood." The noble man-soul was evident enough in the child, and When it was bodied forth in his tall, massive, especially man- ly person, it was scarcely more so. Indeed, the real man of the child was never bodied forth, and never could be, without a history of many years, such as we fondly hoped for him, but shall never behold. He died, in fact, with his high, bright future shut up in him, — it will only come out among the angels of God, and, I doubt not, will make a really grand tigure there. Seldom have they hailed the advent among them, I think, of a youth whose kinship, and peership, and 476 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. hero-life begun, tliey will more gladly acknowledge. Indeed, I have never been able to keep it out of my mind, since I first heard of his death, that there was some too great aptness in him for a place among these couriers and squadrons of glory. It seems to be a kind of extravagance to say this, but I know not how otherwise to describe real impressions. He was such a man as, going into a crowd of strangers, would not only attract general attention by his person, by his noble figure and the fine classic cut of his features, by the cool, clear beaming of his intelligence, by the visible repose of his justice, by a certain almost superlative sweetness of modesty ; but there was, above all, an impression of intense pukity in his looks that is almost never seen among men, and which everybody must and would distinctly feel. But I am only describing here what others felt as truly as I, and could describe, if tliey would, much better than I ; though, perhaps, the acquaintance I had with Henry's interi- orly personal character and struggles in the matter of relig- ion ]nay have prepared me to note, more distinctly than some others would, the signs outwardly appearing. He came to me a great many times, from his early childhood onward, to lay open his troubles and obtain spiritual direction. My con- viction from the very first was, that I had nothing to do with him but to put him in courage and enable him to say " I be- lieve." I never saw him when I did not think he was a Christian, and I do not believe that he ever saw himself early enough to properly think otherwise. Still, he did think oth- erwise much longer than I wished. The difiiculty was to get him away from the tyranny of his conscience. It was so delicate, and steadfast, and strong, that his faith could not get foothold to stand. I feared many times that he was going to be preyed upon all his life long by a morbid con- science. Still, there was a manly force visible even in his childhood ; and I contiived, in what ways I could, to get that kindled by a free inspiration. To get him under im- pulse afterwards for the war, was not half as difiicult, I pre- sume, after the point of my endeavor was already carried; for, having now become a soldier of Christ by a clear and HOPEFULNESS FOR THE COUNTRY. 477 conscious devotion, lie had only to extend that soldiership for the kingdom of heaven's sake. As far as he was concerned, the kingdom of heaven was not worsted when he fell ; but the loss to his country and his comrades in arms was certainly great, greater than most of us will know. Besides, it is a great and sore disappoint- ment to us all that we are cut off abruptly from that noble and high future we had begun to hope for him. Let us be- lieve that he can have as high a future where he is, and re- sign him gladly to it. The following letters will discover the particular work which he had in hand, the patriotic interest with which he watched the progress of the war, and the suj^reme honor in which he held the dear work of his own chosen calling : January 13, 1862. I have not been doing well of late, though I keep on scratching at my great subject, feeling my way along in it, and doing it everything, I fear, but what I want to do, — cer- tainly anything but justice. [This "subject" was the work on "Vicarious Sacrifice."] I count it one of my great bonds of gratitude just now, that I can be hopeful for our dear coun- try, and can expect to live long enough to see the Grand Re- bellion put down. I have all along felt it to be a glorious thing to live in such a day, and I feel it now, more and more distinctly, as I gather confidence in the hope of seeing the day well over. The more I study this plan of our young General, the more do I see of magnificent wisdom in the generalship of it. True, it may fail, but I think I see vic- tory in it. It seems well worthy of notice in this letter that the writer is grateful that he can be hopeful for his country. To be hopeful was to be helpful for it. As a matter of fact. Dr. Bushnell's steady, unshaken hopefulness, all through the dark and trying times when men's hearts were failing them for fear, was a positive service rendered to the good cause, as 478 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. truly as if he Lad been doing soldierly duty in tlie array. Men took conrage from him, and from his faith learned faith. June 19, 1863. As my old pulpit is now vacant, I am trying to put in a sermon a week there. How long I shall stand so much, I don't know. I could go on to the world's end, or to mine, for there is nothing I so much delight in as preaching. I am the more drawn oat in or after it, just now, that I have a set of subjects before me which I want very much to get out as a volume. After all, there is not very much in the Bible, or anywhere else, besides Jesus Christ. "Would that 1 knew him more perfectlj^ ! If there be anything now that makes my life worth living, it is the consciousness that Christ is being opened more and more fnlly to me. I am astonished sometimes at the wondrous depth and fertility of the revela- tion. It used, many years ago, to cost me much digging to get hold of anything fresh in the theme, and I wondered why so much should be said of the riches of it. ~Now it opens it- self, without digging, fartlier and faster than I can sketch it. The vacancy in his old pulpit, to which allusion is here made, was caused by the resignation of the Kev. G. I^. Web- ber, who had been pastor of that cliurch for two years. Dur- ing the summer of this year Dr. Bushnell went for rest to Lake Waramaug, in Warren, which adjoins Kew Preston, the home of his childhood. The beauty of its situation, the salu- brity of its climate, the opportunities for angling, of which he was ever fond, and its associations with earlier life, com- bined to make an attraction for him stronger than was else- where presented. He was at home again in the autumn, and preached the an- nual Thanksgiving sermon in his old church. His working hours were employed, as for several years they were, with writing the "Vicarious Sacrifice;" and in what a glow of spiritual life this work was forged appears from the letter just now quoted. He was writing out of a revelation — not digging for fresh things in his theme, but simply striving to CONSTANT UNFOLDING OF HIS THEME. 479 catch and sketch the fresh things that issued from an unfold- ing and unfailing theme. The great difficulty in his way was his physical infirmities, and the limitations of intellectual ac- tivity caused thereby. In December, 1S62, he wrote to Dr. Bartol : — How often do I let off the question (internally), " Well, what would dear Bartol think of that ?" If I had him by, how I should like to set him improvising ! Alas ! the poetry won't come when I try to imagine it. My prose machine only creaks when it tries to make music. I am trying to use the said machine a little now, in my dull sphere. The great subject wliicli I have in hand occupies me still, and keeps growing, so that I am obliged to recolor, reconstruct, and make all sorts of revisions. Oh, if I had strength to let on more pressingly, how much better work I might do ! What a grand day this to live in, if only one had force to meet the calls it makes, the subjects it opens, and, above all, to face the perils and suffer the sufferings ! All great souls can live fast now — never so fast before. The mood of playful wisdom which was so frequent in Dr. Bushnell finds expression in a letter written to his daughter, and dated January 5, 1863. To appreciate one allusion in the letter, the reader should bear in mind that she had gone for a visit to aW^estern town ambitiously named Constantino. He writes : — One great benefit ... I hope you will get out of this new- world country life for the winter, viz., that you will learn how to extort enjoyments and pleasures out of common places. You have to put on all your screws of" pressure, and make the meagre things give out their riches ; — on the weath- er, just as various and lively in a dull country as anywhere, whistling to keep its courage up ; on the trees, stripping na- ked and stiffening their muscle to fight the winter out ; on the stumps of the stumpy fields, — good symbols of written history, hiding its roots, and dead and gone as to its tops ; on 480 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. the river, meandering most where it has the dullest motion — just as lazj people go farthest because they are going no- where ; on the faces of the old women you meet, considering just what lines in girlhood cut deeper would make them; on the bows of the swains — wasting so much sweetness on the desert air; on the roughness of church privilege, — proving religion just as much more convincingly as it is loved and lived for wdth fewer attractions ; on the chickens, pecking their food with the same tool they iight with, just as silly mankind -bipeds make their purveyings and economies the same thing as the great fight of life; on the pigs' tails, spiral- ling in the curl always one way — showing one more evidence of the uniformity of law ; or, if they have been cut off, how the lines of beauty once gone can never be restored : finally, on Constantine itself, considering how little that great man conceived the honors to be put upon his name in covering such a field of study. Thus, when things look dull and com- mon, put extortion upon them, as mind always can upon things, and make them give up the brightness and fun that are in them. Stir up, touch off, dramatize, and make alive everything. The very poverty of your sights and conditions will thus be- come your riches. There is even a landscape in a quagmire, if only we had eyes to see it. And it is a great thing to have eyes! A winter spent in getting eyes will be worth more than all the hundred eyes of Argus filled gratis with pretty sights. Meantime, when you are getting up resources by extortion, you may show us how you get on, just as much as you please. ... A great many things I could add, but if I say. Love God and keep his commandments, I shall include the best of them. A pure, true heart, wedded fast to God, is the totality of Good. During the winter and spring of 1863, in addition to the labor expended upon the treatise which was in hand, he pre- pared two volumes for the press, which were published about a year later. These were "Work and Play," and the book PUBLICATION OF TWO BOOKS. 481 of sermons entitled "Christ and bis Salvation." He was assisted in the laborious task of proof-reading by bis wife and daugliters. Great "councils of war" were held in tbe family. He would vigorously enougb defend himself from their criticisms of his expressions, but almost invariably made the changes that were suggested. He would listen to the criticism of a child if it was intelligent, and bis revisions of bis work were numerous and patient. T]ie peculiarities of bis style were never tlie result of negligence or baste, for be could no more be slack than slothful in bis work. In tbe volume, " Christ and bis Salvation," is included one of bis most remarkable sermons, on tbe " Insight of Love." First written in 1814, it was remodelled and preacbed in February of this year, and has been read by thousands with tbe same wonder and delight with which it was then beard as it fell from bis lips. One takes down those volumes and, after reading awhile, wonders when such sermons as they contain, sermons whose titles are more suggestive than most dis- courses, will ever be written again. Only the "insight of love" could have made such discernments and discrimina- tions of truth ; only the instrument of genius could have so reported and represented them. Early in June he went, as usual, to Warren for tbe summer vacation, driving across tbe country as he was wont to do. What bis feeling was with respect to the disheartening state of things in the country at large may be understood by the following sentence in a letter addressed to Dr. Bartol. He says : — " We have no time now for heart-sickening or low regrets of any kind. Our mourning should have thunder in it." It should be remembered that this was written after General Hooker's disastrous campaign on tbe Rappahannock, and while General Lee's army was pushing northward in the full tide of its successes. It was the darkest hour of tbe war. Tbe voice of mourning filled the land. But it was the hour before the dawn. Tbe glorious and decisive result of the awful battle at Gettysburg proved that our army, at least, was animated with tbe same brave spirit that is exhibited in bis words. 482 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. Ill tins same year an article from bis pen on "Loyalty" was published in tbe New Englander. The winter of 1864 was spent at home, in busy intellectual work of various kinds, including the final revisions of the books just now spoken of. In March, 1864, he wrote to Dr. Bartol : — " I thank you for yowr monody on Starr King — David bewailing Jonathan, over again. We thank God there was a Jonathan, if it wa3 only that David might sing of his death. However, do not understand me to think Starr King was valuable only for the lamentations. I have a very different appreciation of the man. We have had few such, and shall have few, to the world's end. He has made a good, great mark, and earned a great amount of thanks, which the world will not forget to pay." In May he wrote to the same : — " What terrible throes this new campaign of Grant's is costing us! I do not feel dis- couraged because of the way, but it is a dreadfully hard way." In another letter, after speaking of his recently published volume of sermons, he said: — "How grand a matter, this promenade of Sherman ! He is really too bad upon Hood — shoving him off into a corner, clean out of the way, and leaving him there at the end of his fool's-errand." It may fitly be said here that Dr. Bushnell grew into a great and hearty admiration of General Grant's generalship. He often spoke in terms of unmeasured praise of the mili- tary genius exhibited at Vicksburg and Chattanooga; and when General Grant took command of the Army of the Po- tomac, there was no doubt in his mind of the successful issue of the projected campaign. It should be added, also, that during the years of General Grant's presidency, when it was the fashion to speak contemptuously of him as a man of mean capacity and destitute of statesmanship. Dr. Bushnell was his earnest defender. It roused something like anger in him to hear the depreciations that were often uttered con- cerning the President. JSTot only for his inestimable military services, but for a wise, sagacious, and firm political admin- istration, he thought that General Grant merited tlie honor and gratitude of every lover of his country. LETTER OF CONSOLATION. 483 In July, 1SG4, one of his clear ministerial brethren, and one who had manfiillj stood by him in his days of trial, Rev. Dr. Dutton, of New Haven, was afflicted in tlie loss of his wife. Tlie following letter of condolence was written him by Dr. Bnshnell : — My dear Bkother, — The dreaded result, I perceive, has come, — yonr mnch-loved wife is with yon no more. How deeply you must feel this blow I have no difficulty in con- ceiving; and though it may not be needed,! wish, as a friend, to express my sympathy with you ; God's sympathy you have, and having that, no other can be very significant, I know. I believe that there is no man who so much feels the loss of a good wife as a Christian minister. She is in all his secrets. She is his only counsellor in things of daily occurrence, and there is no other to whom he can go. She preaches to him when nobody else will, and preaches sometimes through him, when he would not, or what he would not, by himself. She chastises his faults with a dear and tender fidelity when no- body else can. In these and a hnndred other ways she gets twisted and twined into everything that belongs to his life and life-work. So, I know, you will have found it. But it will be one very great comfort, and yon will thank God for it, that her work is not ended, but still remains. You know now what she would say and do, and your life is just so much enlarged by her still. Soften your grief hy much ihanksgimng. Yours truly, Horace Bushnell. In the month of July he betook himself, as usnal, to War- ren, and in a letter to his wife gives an account of a narrow escape from death by the way : — Warren, July 14, 1864. My dear Wife, — Yon see that I am here, and Madge [the mare] is not dead. She was very tired, but is all np this morn- ing. I had a very pleasant drive, arriving here about five o'clock. I do not like to speak of a very close predicament I fell into, but I ought, in just gratitude for my escape, to do it. 484 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. The fact is, that I came nearer being killed than I ever did in my life. The road from Waterbury crosses the road from Bristol to Terryville at a very acute angle, and is completely out of sight up to the very crossing. I heard the whistle of the coming train, but, owing to my thickness of hearing, it sounded as if a good distance off, and I put on to get across, as I was not over three rods off. But Madge slacked within a rod, because she was more true in her hearing than I, and down came the rush within six feet of her nose. If she had gone ahead as I wanted her to, she would have been right upon the crossing. She sprang sideways for a turn, but I held her, and, as soon as she could really see what the train was, she was quiet^ a good deal more quiet than I was. I never felt so conscious of a delivering Providence in my life. I shall never try to drive over a railroad crossing again be- fore a train, unless I can see it. I had a good rest at Plym- outh, and had my picnic about half-past twelve, in the gorge of the Valley Road, — a gulf and the roaring brook on one side; on the sun side, a closely -wooded cliff, out of which ran a little gimlet-hole stream, — spilling out of a bark spout, — of the coolest, sweetest water. No tongue was ever so sweet, no currants so fresh ; I suppose it was because I was thinking and tasting wife all the while. Did you ever sweeten the tartar acid before ? Warren, Sunday evening. It is a great satisfaction to hear that you are not doing worse, but better. Let us all put it down for a point, with God's help, to be well next autumn. I think I should prob- ably have the hardest of it, though I seem to be perceptibly improving, and I do not give up the hope that I shall im- prove a good deal more. Oh, for health, health of body, but, — infinitely more to be valued, — that health of the soul which puts it in the trim of heaven's order ! The longer I live, the more do I appreciate this most sublime possibility. Then how sweet, and just, and true, and loving, and lovely, how like the movement of a hymn, is the life ! How dear to each other must any two souls be in this chime of health. God give us this, my dear Mary, in his own good way and time, "OUR OBLIGATIONS TO THE DEAD." 485 or rather put us in that preparation of desire and prayer that will enable us to receive it. I have the letter you enclosed, and will try to answer it somehow, though I hardly know how. How many modes of morbid goodness there may be, — that is, of goodness only a little good ! In the autumn of 1SG4, the Eev. George B. Spalding, of Vergennes, Vermont, and more recently settled in Dover, New Hampshire, was installed as pastor of the North Church, and remained faithfully devoted to its charge for a period of nearly six years, during which time its location and its name were changed to that of the Park Church. The winter of the ensuing year was spent in work upon the forth-coming treatise. In the summer he delivered the oration at the Commem- orative Celebration, held in honor of the Alumni of Yale College who had served their country in the late war. The oration was entitled " Our Obligations to the Dead," and some report of it may properly be made here. It was, in the highest sense of the phrase, a funeral oration, in honor not only of the Alumni of Yale College, but of all the dead who had fallen in the war. " We are to give the dead their due share of the victory and the hon- ors of victory. Not only they who return, but they who fell, are in the lists of triumph. As it is the ammunition spent that gains the battle, so the dead and dumb heroes are the purchase-money of our redemption. " Buried generations back of them must also be taken into the ac- count. If we can know concerning the Honorable Sherman, the Dea- con Sherman, the Judge Sherman, and all the line of Shermans, with their victor wives and mothers, what they were and how they lived, we shall know who fought the great campaigns on Atlanta, and made the wonderful march to the sea. If we begin at Deacon Grant of the Wind- sor Church, descending to the historic Matthew Grant of Tolland— fel- low-scout with Putnam and captain of a French war company — and thence to Joel Root Grant, who removed to Pennsylvania, to Ohio, to Illinois, we shall see by what tough flanking processes of life the great general was preparing. From tliese examples it may be seen by what lines of private worth, and public virtue, and more than noble blood, the 486 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. stock of our armies has been furnished. If we would pay our obliga- tions to the dead, \vc must bow in deejiest homage and reverence before the memory of this nameless fatherhood and motherhood. "Our dead have a distinctive right of honor in the simple fact that they Avere the victims in that great sacritlce of blood which has opened for us a new chapter of life. They have bled for us, and from that shed- ding of blood have come for us great remissions and redemptions. In this blood of our slain our unity is cemented and sanctified. The sacri- fices in the fields of the Revolution united us but imperfectly. We had not bled enough to merge our colonial distinctions, and let out the State- rights doctrine, and make us a proper nation. And so, what argument could not accomi)lish, sacrifice has achieved. Our dead have given us the possibility of a great consciousness and great public sentiments; for a lofty public consciousness arises only when things are loftily and nobly done. The pitch of our life is raised. We perceive what it is to have a country and a public devotion. " We have now a new and stupendous chapter of national history. The story of this four years' war is the grandest chapter of heroic fact, tragic devotion, and public sacrifice that has ever been made in the world. The great epic story of Troy is but a song in comparison. Our cause has been that of order, law, liberty, and right, and we have borne ourselves worthily of it. " Out of this comes also the confidence of a new literary age. As no wn'iter becomes himself, in his full power, till he has gotten the sense of position, so of a people. Hitherto avc have been in a condition of clien- cy, taking our models and laws of criticism, and our opinions too, from the English motherhood of our language and mind. We are now weaned from that pupilage, have gotten our position, are to think our own thoughts, rhyme in our own measures, kindle our own fires, and write, not English, but American. We have gotten also the historic material of a true oratorio inspiration. We have facts, adventures, characters enough to feed five Iiundred years of fiction. We have plots, lies, per- juries, false heroics, barbaric murders and assassinations, cons])iracies of fire and poison — enough of them, and wicked enough, to furnish the Satanic side of tragedy for long ages to come; coujiled with such gran- deurs of public valor and principle, such beauty of heroic sacrifice, as tragedy has scarcely yet been able to find. Our battle-fields are hence- forth poetic names, and our very soil is touched with a mighty poetic life. In the rustic of our winds, what shall the waking soul of our jjoets think of but of brave souls riding by ? In our thunders they may hear the shocks of charges, and the red of the sunset shall take a tinge in their feeling from the summits where our heroes fell. We seem to be set, in a day, in loftier ranges of thought by this huge flood-tide that has lifted our nationality. VISIT TO THE SCENES OF THE WAR. 487 "By tlie blood of their sacrifice these dead have consecrated our free institutions. They are no longer mere human creations, but God's ordi- nances. The wretched philosophy out of which came secession is done away. Government has now become a grandly moral afiair. The stains of sacrifice, tlie stamp of divine sovereignty, are on it. " By what fitting tribute are these obligations to be paid ? We should care for their wives and children ; sanctify their good name; memorize with monuments and tablets their deeds; and, above all else, take their places and stand in their cause. Like the blood of righteous Abel, their blood cries to us and to God from every field, and river, and wood, and road dotted by our pickets and swept by the march, that we execute their purpose and fulfil the idea that inspired them. We are sworn to see that the perpetual, supreme sovereignty of the nation is established ; we are sworn to see that every vestige of slavery is swept clean." In the spring of 18G6, witli a dear friend and his daughter, Dr. Bushnell journeyed southward, visiting the battle-field of Gettysburg, sailing up the James River, and spending a few days in and about Richmond, from which place the following letter w\as written on the l^th of April : — My dearest Wife, — You will see by this that I am " on to Richmond !" and have taken possession. We have had a most delightful time so far — at Harrisburg on Wednesday, overnight, reaching Gettysburg on Thursday, and spending a beautiful afternoon in visiting all the points of the battle- field. We got as clear an idea almost of the whole tliree days of mortal strife as if we had been in it ourselves. Oh, what a grandeur hangs over that sacred valley and town, w^iere the fires of a true devotion to the country's life burnt with a vigor so glorious! On Friday we struck Baltimore, and, after playing round awhile on the lions, glanced off down upon Fortress Monroe, where Ave arrived by steamer Saturday morning. Yesterday we spent in ascending the river through a tier of historic places and lines of earthwork, till we reached this place. To-day we spent the forenoon at the great African church. To-morrow we go to Petersburg and back ; and Tuesday turn our faces towards home, M'hether by way of Antietam or not, I do not know. This, you see, is my birthday, and the loss that I have made in my hearing 32 488 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHXELL. admonislies me more than ever that I am growing old. I have had a great many thoughts, some very tender and de- lightful, some overcast with misgiving and self -accusation. I think I am growing more conscious of sin, and am some- times even a little disturbed by its perils. Kever did I feel so weak and far away from self-help. I certainly want and long to be joined to you in the pure unity of God. I want to have our sunset — what shall I say ? — a setting of the sun. And it is my tender prayer that we may ripen into the full- est and highest possibilities God will give us. The following extract from a letter was written to his wif(? in August, from his summer haunt in Warren : — I am glad to hear that you are in ISTew Haven. The change, I think, will be good for you. Only make it a point to play and be a little dissipated. Even a violin wants to have its strings let down, and not be kept, by the year, up to concert pitch. It is very true that a good Christian woman is not a violin, and also true that there is a certain power of play in the free state of Christian liberty that makes the strain of application less exhausting. Still, there is a certain want of natural play for us all, partly because we touch the state of innocence in it, and so a taste of paradise, needful for us as truly as for the lambs. It was during this year that the volume which had been so long preparing was published. Its complete title, viz., " The Vicarious Sacrifice, Grounded in Principles of Univer- sal Obligation," was significant of its import, and the theo- logical critics fell upon it with avidity. Christ's object is the healing of souls. He is to be God's moral power in working such a soul-cure. His life and sac- rifice are what he does to become this saving power. This may be called the central doctrine of the volume, about which many other related subjects are grouped in discussion. The sacrifice and cross of Christ are represented "as the simple duty of Christ, and not any superlative, optional kind "THE VICARIOUS SACRIFICE" PUBLISHED. 4S9 of good, outside of all the common principles of virtue. It is not goodness over-good, and yielding a surplus of merit in that manner for us, but it is only just as good as it ought to be ... a model, in that view, for us, and a power, if we can suffer it, of ingenerated life in us." The following words in the preface show how far the writer felt that he had succeeded in solving the great problem : — "Perhaj)s it will some time be judged that I have labored the vast, uncom])7'ehend€d complex'dij^ and incomprehensible mystery of the matter as carefully, as conscientiously, and per- haps, also, with as true a justice, as if I had assumed the power to scheme it in a proposition." It is not necessary to speak further, either of the argument or of the logical and rhetorical vigor of this book. However inconclusive its reasoning may seem to some, it cannot be de- nied that its pages testify not only of the author's genius, but of a mind so saturated with the spirit of Christ as to give the color and aroma of that spirit to its every utterance. It would be difficult to find a passage of more pathos and power than that wherein the author addresses Christ in the closing words of the book. It is the incense from the altar of his inmost heart, sweet as the effluence of those vials full of odors which are the prayers of saints. On one of the pages of this book occurs the following eu- logy of President Lincoln, whose case he felicitously used to illustrate how moral power, " even the moral power of Christ, emerges finally, and is crowned only when the necessary point of revision is reached": — " I send these sheets to the press when our great nation is dissolving, as it were, in its tears of mourning, for the great and true father whom the assassins of law and liberty have sent to his grave. AVliat now do we see in him but all that is wisest, and most faithful, and worthiest of his perilous magistracy? A halo rests upon his character, and we find no longer anything to blame, scarcely anything not to admire, in the measures and counsels of his gloriously up- right, impartial, passionless, undiscourageable rule. But we did not always see him in that figure. When already three 4:90 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. full years of his time were gone by, many of us were doubt- ful whetlier most to blame or praise, and many who most wanted to praise had well-nigh lost their confidence in him, and even retained their respect with difficulty. But the suc- cesses he deserved began at last to come, and the merit of his rule to appear. We only doubted still whether wholly to ap- prove and praise. . . . But the tragic close of his life has add- ed a new element, and brought on a second revision, setting him in a character only the more sublime because it is orig- inal, and quite unmatched in history. The great name now of Abraham Lincoln emerges complete, — a power of blessing on mankind, and a bond of homage in the feeling of his coun- try forever." During the summer of this same year he delivered an ad- dress on " Pulpit Talent," at Andover Seminary. It was af- terwards published in a magazine called Hours at Home, with the title, " Training for the Pulpit." This address was an unusually bright, sharp, and pungent one, and was the theme of discussion in many ministerial circles. It attempted to discover some of the factors in successful preaching which are not included in the common computa- tions. High scholarship, metaphysical and theological think- ing, style and manner, and voice for speaking are stated to be the four canonical talents, and are racily discussed. " Of what use is it to know the German, when we do not know the human ? or to know the Hebrew points, when we do not know at all the points of our wonderfully punctuated humanity ?" "Analysis often kills a sermon. Death is a great analyzer, and nothing ever comes out of the analyzing process alive." " Formulas are the jerked-meat of salvation !" "A great many preachers die of style, — that is, of trying to soar, — when, if they would only consent to go afoot, as their ideas do, they might succeed and live. To get up grand ex- pressions . . . and then go hunting after only weak ideas to put into them, is the very wickedest and absurdest violation of the Second Commandment." ARTICLES IN "HOURS AT HOME." 491 Among the uncanonical but essential preaching talents lie specifies "the talent for growtJiP Some men never grow; tliey do not come on an inch. " They are like the Q,g^ that enlarges never a line after it lias found maturity in a slicll !" Another talent is the possession of a great conscience, or "a firmly accentuated moral nature." Another is a large faith -talent. "The soul needs to have broad, high windows, opening Godward." Another is what he describes as " a good personal atmos- phere." " It was not Jesus' look, nor his declamation, nor his fine periods ; It was not even his prodigious weight of matter ; but it was the sacred exhalation of his quality, the aroma, the auroral glory of his person," that gave him such power as he had. "He took the human person to exhale an atmosphere of God that should fill, and finally renew, creation, bathing all climes, and times, and ages with its dateless, ineradicable power," In the month of September the last services were held in the old North Church, in which Dr. Bushnell had preached so many years. The congregation moved into its new house of worship near the city park, and adopted the name by which it has since been known — the Park Church. The location and erection of this new sanctuary had deeply interested him. The I^ortli Church — the scene of his ministerial labors and triumphs — was speedily transformed into a place of mer- chandise, but there are many still living whose remembrances of its religious associations with Dr. Bushnell's ministry are very precious and sacred. In this same year an article from his pen, entitled " The Natural History of the Yaguey Family," was printed in Hours at Home. Taking for his text a singular parasitical Cuban tree, the yaguey, " the wooden devil of the general treehood," he humorously makes it a type of the thieving and parasiti- cal human growths, in a manner well suggested by the letter written to one of his children from Savannah in 1855, to be found in a preceding chapter. The year 1867 was one of comparative leisure. The fol- 492 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. lowing letters written to the late Rev. George Bacon, D.D., will indicate what his opinions were concerning "worship" and the "rotatory diaconate:" — "I think this responsive reading may be well. It gives the people something to do. Still, I do not sympathize with the talk we have about w'orship — much worship! and the claim that reverence requires putting the worship first. I do not think so. What is worship but the fire and flame of hearts burning in the sense of God? And a real, right- working sermon will kindle more such flame than all the liturgies of the world. What liturgies had Christ and his apostles, and what did they do but preach and keep preach- ing in all their assemblies? Make the preaching right, and I will answer for the interest, and glow, and high understand- ing, and real worship of the people. . . . "I heartily dissent from the three-year deacons! The deacon is to purchase to himself a good degree and great boldness, and that good degree means power for good, ac- quired by long use. And a good old deacon — God bless him ! — what is there better, and more to be felt or loved ? But a three-year deacon is nobody. He is scarcely old enough to have gotten by the state of veal, — he is not beef at all. The very naming of a three -year trust kills the office. A real live deacon can hardly appear in that figure." The following letter seems to have been written in re- sponse to a request for recommendation to a professorship of metaphysics. For obvious reasons the name of the per- son addressed is withheld : — Hartford, April 18, 1867. I am very much at a loss to know what answer I ought to give to your request. You are quite right in assuming that I will not be disinclined to do you service in this matter because you are personally a stranger. But it happens that you are unfortunate in applying to one who is so far out of line in the matter of metaphysics. I was formerly drawn to that study, but I have lost all expectation from it, and only METAPHYSICS. 493 read enough to keep myself informed of what is passing. After any one has gotten the insight of words, wliere all true intelligence (intus lego) centres and comes to its limits, I do not think it possible for him to care much for logic or met- apliysics. He has discovered by that time the possibility of systems without end, and the impossibility of any that can stand. And it is a fact not to be questioned, that metaphys- ics have never established anything. The last new teacher is always about to do it, and the coterie gathered about him are quite certain that he has ; but it turns out very shortly that he has rather multiplied the cjuestions than settled any one of them. The teachers are all building what they call the ' science,' but science does not fare in that way. There is, in fact, no science here, and never will be, — language is too liglit-winged and too competent of right uses to be harnessed in this mill. Metaphysics have three uses. First, they show that metaphysics are impossible ; secondly, they are a good gymnastic ; thirdly, they vary the old questions, so as to en- large the field. At this last point Spencer has a considerable merit, with, as far as I know, scarcely any other. I have read only one of the articles you name, — that on "Positivism in Theology." My criticism on it would be brief- ly this: — that the positivism you so much count upon ap- pears to be nothing different from Bacon's doctrine of sci- ence, after you have so essentially cut down the merit of Comte, to whom it belongs, and so handsomely and fatally demolished Spencer, its most pronn'nent champion. I per- ceive in the latter part of your article that you still cling to the faith of something very positive, somewhere, if anybody can find it ; but as we do not commonly name children be- fore they are born, I see no very particular reason, just now, for asserting anything under this rather pretentious title. And it will not be any more acceptable to some that they look on Comte as not being very much of a character. What you say of "logical and illogical" science, and re- ligious "authority and reason," "supernaturalism and natural- ism," appears to me to be more a matter of logomachy than you think it is, though I distinguish in it a very great as- 494 LIFE OF IIOllACE BUSHNELL. sumption, from which I strongly dissent. You assume that opinion here is going to be finally science, and so the end of all debate ; whereas I look upon opinion as a kind of clat- ter that can settle nothing. Faith is a much higher, more explorative way of knowledge here than opinion, and cannot well be ignored as the summit -faculty of souls. Faith dis- cerns; opinion manipulates. Faith has nothing to do with propositions; opinion, with nothing else. Thus, when I be- lieve in God, it is the act of one being committing himself in trust to another being, and in that trust getting immediate knowledge and consciousness of him. In that knowledge, too, I get the sense of my own everdiiringness, which never was or can be settled by the method of opinion Avorking at the question of immortality. So of supernatural inspiration, the grandest fact of human experience — opinion can do noth- ing with it. What, then, shall I say ? That you write well I admit with the greater satisfaction that I am obliged to make these strictures. In your negative and destructive work I perfect- ly agree with you. You are a good metaphysician — capable, I think, of standing as high as a metaphysician ought to stand, or can, without ceasing to be one. And there is noth- ing I should so much like as to recommend some one for this kind of professorship who will teach words, show how words are made up into systems, how all systems slip by slip- ping in Avords— how the science they attempt has, therefore, never been forth-coming, and never will be. . . . The following note Avas Avritten to a friend Avlio had sent him a little barometric " weather-house," from AA'hose door a man is made to come out in bad weather, or a woman when the weather changes to fair: — , Dear Miss E., — It is a rather tough joke upon us male ones that w^e are to be the signs of all bad Aveather, and the AA'omen folk to bring all the fair mornings and bright, open skies. Is it so in the great "Weather - House of the world, Avhere the so-called mated people live? Does the Avoman run out of the house at one door, Avhenever the man comes BUILDING ERAS IN RELIGION. 495 ill at the other? Pray has that been your feeling? If so, it explains one thing I could never understand. ISTo, my friend, your "weather-house" does not rejiresent the inside weather, but the outside. And when your man comes brave- ly forth to report the coming storms, that is the generosity of his make. And when the dear mate timidly retires with- in, claiming her " woman's rights," that is — what you please. Very good. I like it, and shall be a great deal more atten- tive to the weather, for the weather-house's sake, and shall peer inside sometimes, wishing comfort in the storms to the giver. With much affection, yours, II. B. During the year 1868 several articles from his pen were published in various magazines. One, on " Science and Re- ligion," appeared in Putnam'' s Magazine j and another, of un- common interest, on " Bailding Eras in Religion," in Hours at Home. This latter article was originally written in the form of a sermon for use at the dedication of the Park Church. In its descriptions of the Cathedral age occur many passages of singular force and beauty : — "And now (after the crusades) the old heroics of sentiment, the romance, the church fervor, took fire in the thought of building for religion, and began to throw itself up in stone as by a divine call. . . . Thus went up the magnificent Minster at York, the grandly-studied pile at Antwerp, the gossamer web of Strasburg, the sublime ineipiency of Cologne, the mountain-peak of St. Stephen's at Vienna, and the immortal beauty and unmatched miracle of St. Ouen at Rouen." Of the latter he says : " It was as if the stone itself, bedded in cruciform lines of foundation, had shot up into peaks, and pinnacles, and pointed forms, and sprung its flying buttresses across in air by some uplifting sense or quickened aspiration." Encountering the different people, — architects. Ritualists, Puritans, and Adventists, — who say, from their different stand-points, that there will be no grander building eras in the future, he argues, with great force and eloquence, that there will be. He believed with all his mind and heart in the doctrine of 496 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. progress. Our boasted civilization, superior as it is to what has formerly existed, is an infantine affair. These days be- long to the beginnings. " The world is an unhatched egg as yet. ... It will go on propagating salvation, character, saint- hood, brotherhood, intelligence, and glory for some hundred thousand years yet, till the populations of the redeemed souls preponderate so vastly as to throw all computations of loss out of mind." Never before as now could vast assemblies be gathered at single points. " We can set all choirs and organs in every part of a State or of the nation upon a perfect chime of time-beat, in any given anthem, at any hour of day or night. . . . We are to have unequalled resources for building, and such resources will appear, as occasion arises, in structures unequalled for majesty and magnitude." He has no fears that the art of building has found its limit. Then follows this curious sentence : — " Supposing that no new forms or orders are ever to be added, auy least inventive bigot of routine can see that, putting down a Greek cross for a centre and drawing out the four limbs into four Latin crosses, a most perfect five-fold whole can be constructed of any con- ceivable extent." He shows how the cathedral, with all its grandeur and beauty, is a great w\ay off from being completely and genuine- ly Christian. Christianity has already gone beyond it in its development, and requires a building for the communion of saints and their w^orship in the Spirit, instead of one for altar- worship only. " Great movements now beginning all over the world foretoken vast assemblages of believers flowing to- gether in a sublime concourse of brotherhood. ... In that great day which the Spirit is preparing, we can see, at a glance, that great changes will be coming to pass that will demand great feasts and anthems of Koinonial worship, such as our world-brotherhood has never yet imagined." The time is coming when our sectarian subdivisions shall make w^ay for the state of unity: when "the immense impost- ure of the Pope shall go down, when all priesthoods shall go VACATION IN THE ADIRONDACKS, 497 down, and God's armies of believers shall enter into the liber- ties of his kingdom ; when science and religion, reconciled, shall join Creator-worship and Redeemer-worship ; and then we shall have great spaces, great symbols, great anthems like the waves of the sea, great temples of unity ! Then the grandest doxologies, and most hallowed prayers, and widest human brotherhoods will be mounting into stone by the up- ward lift of their affinities." This almost forgotten essay seems to us to be one of the most beautiful that was ever written by Dr. Bushnell. It is a poem from first to last ; and if his forecastings and fore- shadowings are a poet's creations, they are too beautiful not to be true, or to lie in obscurity. Professedly Puritan and anti- Ritualist as he was, he cannot write of the bright and better daj^s of unity and completeness to come, without in- vesting worship with the decent splendors and pomps that belong to it and become it. He hears thunders of responsive assent ; petitions of prayer answered by Aniens like the sound of many waters ; anthems that are like the waves of the sea ; and sees holy processions, timed by marches and hymns, in the aisles and galleries of walh that are alive with worship. As it was with Milton, the Puritan, so it was with him w^ien his imagination was set on conceiving what Zion might be in the perfection of her beauty, and when God should be wor- shipped in the full beauty of holiness. The summer vacation of 1S68 was passed, not in the old haunts, but in the Adirondacks, whither he went for the next summer also. A letter written there gives a detailed account of his ramblings and excursions. Though an invalid, he walked, and climbed, and fished, after a fashion that would have exhausted many men who boast of perfect health. He did not believe in travelling much in " Dumpdom." " It is a poor country, with very bad roads, and almost anybody would do better to go round it than to pass through it." He made, or rather found, some true friends in that beauti- ful valley. He honored the manly qualities of some of the guides, enjoyed the ruminations and piquancies of " Old Phelps," and all the meandering walks and talks they had to- 498 LIFI^ OF HORACE BUSHXELL. getlier. But his thoughts often adverted with a peculiav tenderness to the lowly Christian souls there, having an ex- perience that differed so widely from his own, sustaining in those quiet recesses of the mountains an inward life with God which was almost unrecognized by man. Of one house- hold, beneath whose roof he found a peaceful shelter, he said, — " How beautiful are such lives, growing in obscurity, hid- den away here like the mosses in the forest !" Mount Marcy was not enough for him, and, with a guide, he set forth for " twice as tough a job,"— to climb the Giant of the Valley by an unknown route. As this mountain had then been visited by only a few persons, and as his o-uide was an old man whose qualification for the attempt consisted in the fact that he had once reached its top from another quarter, their expedition was regarded as not only difficult but hazardous. The Giant is peculiarly inaccessible, owing to the tangle of rough hills which hem it in ; the way was trackless, and the climb, even under more favora- ble circumstances, is one of the most arduous to be made in that reo-ion. They however succeeded in reaching the sum- mit ; and then, as daylight was waning and time became val- uable. Dr. Bushnell proposed a rapid way of descent by means of the bare slides of rock made by avalanches, and extend- ino- half way down the mountain on its farther side. Trust- ing themselves to these, the two old men proceeded to coast down the steep incline, clinging or catching as they might, here and there, by a bush or shrub. This crazy exploit was safely accomplished, and after dark, and when great anxiety was beginning to be felt for them, the travellers ap- peared, staggering with fatigue, but jubilant over the success of their adventure. Those who remember how exceedingly frail Dr. Bushnell seemed at that time can but wonder at his fourteen miles' tramp up and down in the wilderness. But they can understand why he should attempt it, when he says, "It had for me the interest of an exploration." Many interesting reminiscences of his Adirondack life have been related by his dear young friend, Rev. J. H. Twichell, who was his companion in those scenes. INCIDENTS OF LIFE IN THE WOODS. 499 One day, as they were fishing together, and his friend, drawing him out, remarked on the satisfaction lie must feel at the many testimonies that came to him of his helpfulness, he made answer that the only ground of self-satisfaction he had was that he knew he had loved truth, and had tried to find it out ! Again he said, — "The wonder of wonders to me, in the personal dealings of God with me, is the patience he has had with me ! Oh, how he has had to bear with me ! How he has borne with me !" He often fell into moods of criticism that were fatal to whatever books came under review. One night, as he lay, with two friends, before the camp-fire, the conversation turn- ed npon authors. One by one the literary champions went down nnder his lance, until the field was pretty thick with the slain. One then quietly asked him what authors he did like. Hesitating a little, and probably perceiving the snare, he mentioned two or three, but finally demolished them all, save Coleridge. I have often heard him say that he was more indebted to Coleridge than to any extra-Scriptural au- thor. If the sermons of Dr. Bushnell made a deep impres- sion on th6 minds of his hearers, and were treasured np in memory, so also with his prayers. He prayed as if speak- ing to some one within hearing, and as if that one was lis- tening. AVith singular felicity and simplicity of language too. His prayers had the effect of somehow enlarging the spiritual horizon. They let in light. God's presence was felt to be near. They made one feel how great a privilege there is in prayer, and into what a freedom it leads. Mr. Twichell speaks of this in the following anecdote : — " I shall never forget one night when I was alone with him, away up on the side of Mount Marcy, when it Came time to sleep, and I asked him to pray, how turning on his face (for we were both lying doAvn) he began in his natural voice, but with a tone as soft and still and melodious as the low mur- mur of the stream that ran by our camp, what seemed for all the world like talking with some person who was next to him, but whom I did not see. And so he continued com- 500 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. muning sweetly in expressions of adoring tlianks, and love, and humility, and trust, and blessed hope, with that near Pres- ence; till when he ended I found every other feeling swallow- ed up in the thought that God was there." Certain characteristic traits of Dr. Bushnell are pleasantly illustrated in a description, by Mr. Twichell, of an expedition in the Adirondacks. It will be read with zest by all who knew him : — " Up in the Adirondacks there is a certain route that par- ties have always taken into the wilderness to visit some of the notable natural phenomena of that locality. The first time the Doctor went there, he had, within two days after his ar- rival, by looking at the lay of the conntry and studying the map, made up his mind that there was a better course to fol- low in taking that trip, and nothing would do but that I must set out with him and prove it. It was a sort of heresy in the premises, but he succeeded in establishing it. There were in- cidents of this little expedition that stick in my memory be- cause they so exhibited certain of the Doctor's traits. I may be pardoned for relating some of them. We took with us two of the most experienced guides of that region, men skilled in woodcraft, who had lived among those mountains most of their lives. But as for being guided by them in the sense of saying ' Go ahead, and I will follow,' the Doctor evidently had no such idea. From the hour that we set out he insisted on knowing the why and wherefore of every turn that was made through the whole journey. Their statements as to the course we were pursuing he invariably verified by the compass. And when his judgment and theirs, as to the way to take at any point, crossed, as not infrequently happened, they had to jus- tify their view to his complete satisfaction before he would accept it. Indeed, it was just about the same as if he had been alone. At one time we. went a little astray, and it was necessary to take a considerable look about us before proceed- ing. I did all I could to get the Doctor to sit still and rest while the guides took the observations the case called for. But no, he could not delegate such a matter as finding out the way to go right, and so he went clambering, here and there, ILLNESS ON THE MAKCIL 501 over the rocks and fallen timber (it was an exceedingly rough place), charged with the whole responsibility of the situation, till the problem was solved. The exertion he had made, how- ever, brought on presently a hemorrhage to which he was sub- ject. I knew nothing of it till, as he walked before me he turned and said, 'Look here,' and showed me a mouthful of blood he had just thrown out upon the ground. 'We must stop at once,' I said. ' No, no,' he answered ; ' don't tell the guides. It is nothing serious, and I had rather move along.' But by the time we stopped to go into camp he was very weak. During the night he continued to raise blood, and grew feverish, and slept hardly at all ; and, as if to complete the misery of his plight, it came on to rain. In the morning he found himself quite unable to jiroceed. I was in utter dis- tress, and did not know what to do, for we were miles from any house. It looked as if he might die there. But after lying still under the bough-shelter tlirough the day, telling me all the while not to worry, toward evening he began to revive and feel a good deal better, and that night he rested. In the morning he rose and stirred about a little, and said, ' Well, I'm on my feet again. We'll march to-day.' Of course I had no notion, under the circumstances, of his marching anywhere but straight back home by the shortest route, and in some way I implied that. Whereupon, to my equal surprise and dismay, he exclaimed, 'No, indeed; we are not going back; we are going on — unless you give out.' And, accordingly, on we went, and travelled three whole days more, and accomplished what we set out to do before we returned." In the year 1869, many articles of his were printed in Hours at Jlome,— -one on "Progress;" and the series of essays on tlie "Moral Uses of Dark Things" was begun. Another, still, was entitled " Our Gospel a Gift to the Imagination," which seems to me to be one of the ablest and noblest of all his essays. His theory, that language is utterly inadequate to serve the uses of religious dogma, is vigorously set forth in it. The following paraphrases and quotations may serve to in- dicate his line of thought : — 502 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. " The Christian gospel is pictorial. Its every line or lineament is traced in some image or metaphor, and no ingenuity can get it away from metaphor. No animal ever understood a metaphor. That belongs to man as a creature of intelligence, by virtue of his power to see in all images the faces of truth and to read their meaning. All the truths of religion are given by images ; all God's revelation is made to the imagi- nation ; and all the rites, and services, and ceremonies of the olden times were only a preparation of draperies and figures for what was to come, — tlie basis of words sometime to be used as metaphors of the Christian grace. " Christ is ' God's last metaphor !' ' tlie express image of God's per- son !' and when we have gotten all the metaphoric meanings of his life and death, all that is expressed and bodied in his person of God's saving help, and new-creating, sin-forgiving, reconciling love, the sooner we dismiss all speculations on the literalities of his incarnate miracles, his derivation, the composition of his person, his suflFering — plainly tran- scendent as regards our possible understanding— the wiser we shall be in our discipleship. "Nothing makes infidels more surely than the sijinning, splitting, nerveless refinements of theology. This endeavor, to get the truths of religion away from the imagination, into propositions of the speculative understanding, makes a most dreary and sad history. . . . They were plants alive and in flower, but now the flavors are gone, the juices are dried, and the skeleton parts packed away and classified in the dry herbarium called theology. . . . " Scientific theology will be completely thought out ' about the same time that words are substituted for algebraic notations, and poetry re- duced to the methods of the calculus or the logarithmic tables.' "All atterajats to think out the cross and have it in dogmatic state- ment have resulted only in disagreement and distraction. If we un- dertake to make a science out of the altar metaphors, it will be no Gospel that we make, but a poor, dry jargon rather — a righteousness that makes nobody righteous, a justice satisfied by injustice, a mercy on the basis of pay, a penal deliverance that keeps on foot all the penal liabilities." Tlie essay concludes with a masterly comparison of Tur- retin and Bunyan, one a great expounder in the school of dogma, and the other a teacher by and before the imagina- tion. " The venerable dogmatizer is already far gone by, . . . but the glori- ous Bunyan fire still burns, because it is fire, kindles the world's imagi- nation more and more, and claims a right to live till the sun dies out in the sky. Ilis Pilgrim holds on his way still fresh and strong as ever. PREFACE TO "WOMAN SUFFRAGE." 503 nay, fresher and stronger than ever, never to be put off the road till the last traveller heavenward is conducted in." At this time the small volume on "Woman Suffrage" was written. How much effect the argument has had in the gen- eral discussion, I know not, but the description of it, in his title, as a " Reform against Nature " made a hard hit. That phrase got abroad, and wrought effectually. But there is nothing in the book more worthy of insertion here than the Preface. " For once I "will dare to break open one of the customary seals of si- lence, by inscribing this little book to the woman I know best and most thoroughly ; having been overlapped, as it were, and curtained in the same consciousness for the last thirty-six years. If she is offended that I do it without her consent, I hope she may get over the offence shortly, as she has a great many others that were worse. She has been with me in many weaknesses and some storms, giving strength alike in both ; sharp enough to see my foults, faithful enough to expose them, and con- siderate enough to do it wisely: shrinking never from loss, or Ijlame, or shame to be encountered in anything right to be done ; adding great and high instigations — instigations always to good, and never to evil mistaken for good; forecasting always things bravest and best to be done, and supplying inspirations enough to have made a hero, if they had not lacked the timber. If I have done anything well, she has been the more really in it that she did not know it, and the more willingly also that having her part in it known has not occurred to her ; compel- ling me thus to honor not less, but more, the covert glory ot the woman- ly nature; even as I obtain a distincter and more Avonderiug apprehen- sion of the divine meanings, and moistenings, and countless, unbought ministries it contributes to this otherwise very dry world." In the month of March he preached an extremely interest- ing sermon before the Connecticut Sunday-school Teachers' Convention, the title of which w\as, " God's Thoughts fit Bread for Children." He warmly advocated the " Moravian way " of training children largely by the singing" of hymns that centre in Christ. He would organize a " discipleship in hosannas," and put children through " chants, litanies, son- nets, holy madrigals, and doxologies — such and so many, and so full of Christ's dear love, that they w^ill sing Christ into their hearts." With respect to preaching to children, he said : — 33 504 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIIXELL. "We get occupied with great and high subjects that require a hand- ling too heavy and deep for children, and become so fooled in our estimate of -what we do, that yve call it coming down when we un- dertake the preaching to children ; whereas it is coming up rather, out of the subterranean hills, darknesses, intricacies, and dungeon-like profundities of old, grown-up sin, to speak to the bright, daj'light creatures of trust, and sweet affinities, and easy convictions. . . . Preach- ing only to grown-up people is much as if we were to set our minis- try to a preaching only to bachelors. We dry up in this manner, and our thought wizens in a certain pomp of pretence that is hollow, and not Gospel." In March, 1870, the Eev. Geo. B. Spalding resigned his pas- torate of tlie Park Church, and was succeeded bj the Rev. N. J. Burton, D.D., who for many years had lived in neighbor- liood and intimacy with Dr. Bushnell. This choice of Dr. Burton by the Park Church was exceedingly grateful to Dr. Bushnell, since it gave him for his successor in the ministry, and for the pastor of his family, one of his most intimate and valued friends. In June Dr. Bushnell preached the installation sermon of Pev. Washington Gladden, at N^orth Adams, Mass., and short- ly afterwards made an address at the Commencement of Wil- liams College. In July he delivered an address on " ]S"ew Education," before the Sheffield Scientific School at New Haven. During the three months' absence of the pastor of the Sec- ond Church of Hartford, Dr. Bushnell supplied his pulpit, preaching regularly each Sunday morning. The manner of his administration of the Lord's Supper there was long re- membered with tender interest. During all these years he was not infrequently found preaching in the pulpits of the Park, Second, and Asylum Hill churches, where he was rev- erenced and listened to as a proj^het and apostle. His phys- ical feebleness only served to excite an affectionate pity, and to show, by way of contrast, his unabated mental vigor and spiritual energy. It sometimes seemed, while he spake, as if a superior and more than mortal power was in him. It was evident tliat, while his outward man was daily perishing, his inward man was dailv renewed. SERMONS ON LIVING SUBJECTS. 505 In the autumn of the same year he also preached several times for Dr. Storrs, of Brooklyn. In 1871 he spent several weeks in New Haven, and preached repeatedly in the College chapel. One sermon on the text, " His bones are full of the sin of his youth," was listened to by the young men with breathless attention, and was eagerly discussed among them afterwards. The same year he prepared for publication a new volume of sermons, which was issued the next year un- der the title of " Sermons on Living Subjects." One of these, in which he was particularly interested — " The En- thronement of the Lamb " — had been preached to two con- gregations in Hartford, and may be said .to contain a most masterly and satisfactory statement of his distinctive doc- trine concerning Christ's mediation. Another of these ser- mons, remarkable alike for its beauty and for its catholic treatment of the subject, was on the Virgin Mary. It was first read to a small circle of friends in my house, and after- wards preached in the South, Park, and Asylum Hill churches. It was the last sermon which Dr. Bushnell ever publicly de- livered, and the following account of its delivery (evidently written by Dr. Burton) will be read with interest : — " ]\Iary, the Mother of Jesus." " Dr. Bushnell delivered his discourse on the above topic in the Park Church, yesterday morning, before a large and sympathetic assembly. The Doctor is already just past his threescore and ten, and much in- tense mind-work, long continued, has somewhat broken in upon his stanch physique ; but his wonderful brain retains all its fine quality and fertility, and gives every promise of standing intact and full-girded for- ever. And so the above sermon moved forward in rhythms and tender- nesses, and great outreaches of thought and fine plays of imagination, with loving reverences intermingled, entirely characteristic and not easy to be forgotten, reminding one first of the days when he held the pulpit of the Park Church as a throne of power, as also of those other and sad days — may they long delay ! — when this great voice, so long among us, shall be silenced, and we who have been charmed by it shall go mourn- ing forever for the dear familiar sound of it. The ties between afoithful preacher and his people are very sacred and indestructible ; and if, as in Dr. Bushnell's case, the entire thinking world have been his people, by what a throng are his eartlily steps attended, and with what a meaning shall ' his works follow him ' as his eternal life unfolds !" 506 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. In 1872 he put forth call his energies to secure a right lo- cation and a befitting plan for the new State Capitol to be erected in Hartford. The Connecticut Legislature of 1871 passed a resolution appropriating the sum of five hundred thousand dollars for a new State-house in Hartford, provided the city of Hartford would give an equal amount and also provide a site. A State Commission of five gentlemen was appointed with authority to build a State-house, and they were instructed to confer with the proper authorities of Hart- ford, and with them determine the building site. The city government voted the necessary sum of money, and selected the west end of the City Park. But Dr. Bush- nell strenuously opposed this selection. When charged with inconsistency by some who remembered that when he labor- ed to secure the Park, one of his reasons was, that it would one day be crowned by a new State-house, he snapped his fingers at that consistency which never grows wiser, said he was several sizes bigger than formerly, and pushed his ob- jections. He had little support or sympathy. The State Commission looked over the grounds, heard his objections, and unanimously decided against him, and accepted the Park site. All the newspapers of the city, and an overwhelming majority of the citizens, were opposed to his suggestions, which involved the outlay of at least two hundred thousand dollars. ISTothing daunted, he set as resolutely to work as so sick a man could. He drew np a petition, and gained numer- ous and influential signatures to it, requesting the Common Council to allow a meeting in the City Hall to discuss the advisability of offering another site (known to Hartford as the Seymour-Catlin lot) to the Commission. Just then, as if he had not enough to contend with, came the Chicago fire, impoverishing Hartford as well as Chicago. Could he ex- pect Hartford now to buy a lot for two hundred thousand dollars, when it had one to give, which most of the people preferred to any other ? The matter rested uneasily for some two months, during which time the Doctor was winning con- verts privately, although his petition and remonstrance were treated,with downright opposition in the press. In January, WOKK FOR THE STATE CAPITOL. 507 1872, a public meeting was called for tlie purpose of givinii- him a liearing, though no one dreamed that any change would come of it. We had forgotten what was in him, A few days before I met him on the street, and he said, " If I had only a few grains of strength left, I would grapple with this business and overthrow it." I replied, " Do not distress your- self, Doctor; for, though you had an archangel's strength, you could not accomplish such a miracle." I can see him now, as he turned wearily away, and M'alked on under his ])urden. But the evening of the 7th of January found him in Cen- tral Ilall, charging down upon that settled and accepted mis- take, in a speech that will never be forgotten by those who heard it. It was simply irresistible — cogent, witty, good-nat- ured, convincing, and closing in a strain of singular pathos and eloquence. The Courant, next morning, reported it ful- ly, and cautiously swung into the line of approval. A pro- found impression was made upon the entire community. That speech saved Hartford from committing a terrible blunder. There was one wise man in this city. A few^ words may tell the result. Dr. Bushnell's plan was not adopted. Just then it occurred to Mr. A. E. Burr, the editor of the Hartford Times, to say that the ideal site for a Capi- tol was that occupied by Trinity College, adjoining the West Park. His suggestion was approved, and everybody agreed that the true location was now discovered. Could it be pur- chased ? A public committee was appointed to ascertain and report. Dr. Bushnell heartily approved this plan. On the 16th of March the committee reported on what terms the property could be obtained, and recommended its purchase for the sum of six hundred thousand dollars ! A few days later a popular vote of the citizens authorized its purchase, and the thing that should have been done was done. One day not long before his death. Dr. Bushnell stood near the rising walls of the new Capitol, conversing with a gentle- man, who said, '' Doctor, do you remember how, twenty years ago, in a speech before the Common Council of the city, in which you were pleading for a city Park to be made out of 50S LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. the filthiest part of Hartford, lying along Little Eiver, you described what might be here in the future — a beautiful Park, skirted by a pleasant roadway, with a church facing it on Asylum Street, and yonder western hill crowned with a noble Capitol ?" "Yes," said the Doctor. "Behold and see your vision fulfilled ! Here is your Park, than which there is none lovelier in ISTew England. Yonder is the beautiful Gothic church of your own parish facing it from over the river, and here is rising the noble Capitol to crown the west- ern hill !" TJie entire scene, one of the fairest in our land, — the Park, the church, the Capitol, — is Dr. Bushnell's lasting memorial, '• Si quiieris monumentum, circumspice !" Daring all those years, while his life was, by reason of ill health, often a secluded one, and his adventures those of the study chiefly, he allowed himself by no means to be cir- cumscribed within the narrow bounds of a mere studious or domestic life. His mind sought afiiliation with the outside world all the more eagerly because of his seclusion, and there was nothing going on in the great world of affairs in which he did not take a practical interest. The engineering of the great railroad lines across the continent was a favorite study with him. The ten large and finely illustrated volumes of Eeports'^f tlie "Explorations for a Kailroad Eoute from the Mississippi Kiver to the Pacific Ocean," published by the United States government, were sent him by a friend in Congress ; and from these he gathered a vividly real knowl- edo-e of the regions explored, and used to talk about them as if he had been there. The Eeport of " Explorations and Sur- veys for a Ship-Canal across the Isthmus of Darien " furnish- ed a study over which he spent absorbed and even exciting hours. He had all the different proposed routes and their levels as clearly mapped in his head as if he had made the surveys himself, having also in mind the difficulties and dan- gers and comi3arative cost of the four or five lines, and, after long study and comparison, he made up his mind on which route he would lay out the canal. A man to whom the wdiole work was committed could hardly have been more STUDY OF THE \yOKLD AT LARGE. 509 deeply in earnest about it. This is but one illustration of the way in which his mind took wings, refusing ever to be captive for a moment. Books of geography and travel were only another means of mental locomotion. lie was at one time in Africa on a hunt with Baker, or with Livingston ea- gerly searching for the sources of the Nile. It was his explo- ration, and he had his own guesses and theories. At such a time his whole family might be said to live in Africa, so thor- oughly was his mind enveloped in its atmosphere, and so viv- idly did he communicate his sense of it to others. Again, it was in China that he travelled, becoming easily acquainted with its sphinx-like people, their arts, their crops, their cus- toms, and their schools ; he learned the geography of the great continent, and never rested till he had an Orient in his brain, almost as distinct to him as the "Western World he lived in. He also kept pace, as he had opportunity, with the latest discoveries of science, profoundly interested in their influence upon religious thought, and with no jealousy whatever that a true knowledge of God's laws could be aught but subservient to his truth. So he kept himself alive and alert, never drows- ing into the rust or decay of disease ; and hence his very move- ment was elastic and enterprising, like that of one who travels. In the month of July, 1873, Mr. Ralph Burkett, a spiritual son of Dr. Bushnell, and one who especially appreciated and supported him, died of a disease much resembling that of the Doctor. A few days before his death he was moved to joy and praise by the following letter which had been received from the man he loved so well : — Ripton,Vt., July 25, 1873. I understand that you have returned to Hartford as the place to be of your departure. I am sorry to be away, but I do not know that you have special need of me-. You know where the gate is, and will not wait for any one to show you in, where your own thoughts have been so often pushing in, and are grown so familiar with the place. I am waiting there more than ever now, myself, and you will scarcely have room to turn around before I am with you. Well, what regrets have w^e, that we are crowded on so close 510 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. upon the verge ? It has been a great thing for us to live ; and if you feel as I do, you will seem to see that everything has been done to get you ready. The most affecting and the most impressive thing of all, to me, is that so much has been done for me. Is there anything better to think of now, than that God is God, and is ours? "Whom else have we in heaven or on earth, and whom else do we want ? Oh, the unspeakable greatness of a life related to God — a life in God's affinities, and capable of so high a friend- ship! All the other things of our being — our successes, assurances, participations — are now very insignificant; and to be with Christ, and rest with him where he rests, how full, and free, and tender is this hope ! As your time draws near, may God himself draw near, and make your soul so strong that you shall not ask for peace, or, indeed, for anything but himself. If I return before you go, I shall be with you. Yours in the love of God, IIokace Bushnell. Dr. Bushnell's faithful attendance and participation in the weekly Hartford ministers' meeting, and in the bimonthly sessions of the Hartford Central Association, deserve a pass- ing notice. The ministers' meeting, originally held in Dr. Hawes's quaint old study, and afterwards in the chapels of the Pearl Street and Centre churches, has been, for twenty years at least, the place of free, familiar, social, cordial, clerical fel- lowship. AVliat delightful and even merry scenes have been witnessed therein ! What fervent prayers, what rich instruc- tion, what cordial reciprocations of good-will, what skilful fen- cing and stout wrestling too, what thrusts and parries, what genial pleasantries and side-splitting jokes, wliat tender coun- sellings, what harmonious doxologies in which all discords of discussion ended ! There Turnbull, and Beadle, and Hawes, and Bushnell, who with others have gone into rest, contrib- uted of their diverse goods. There scores of dear souls still living on the earth, but scattered hence, were gathered. Thither, every Monday morning, punctually too, came the MINISTERIAL MEETINGS. 511 greatest and wisest of thein all. lie always sat in the same seat. It was no higher than that in which the weakest brother sat. Alas that it did not then occur to us to play the reporter for him, and make some record of the innumer- able bright, brilliant coruscations of his playful and of his more serious genius ! How often have we seen that meeting convulsed with laughter at some sudden sally of his wit — grave Dr. Ilawcs unbending with the rest, though not with- out vain resistance ! How often have we beheld it hanging, still, rapt, and solemn, on his eloquent lips, as he spoke in deep, mystic strains of the Lord and of his love ! There, as everywhere and always, he was completely unconscious of his greatness. It was veiled in humility. ISTothing in dress, demeanor, or carriage denoted superiority. It was his speech that betrayed him. Then his distinctive traits were noted — the positive and intense opinion launched in bolts of language that flashed as they flew ; the grotesque remark that suddenly came from far away, like a bomb-shell, to explode and scatter idle pretensions; the coinage of words that made., old things new ; the bright-gleaming scimitar strokes of wit that some- times beheaded a fallacy so deftly that a little joggling was necessary to discover the decapitation. Not anywhere, in his most eloquently written pages, is his power of inspiration more remarkable than it often was in these congenial circles of his brethren. Dr. Bushnell was one of the original members of the Mon- day Evening Club, which was formed for purposes of intel- lectual commerce in the winter of 1868. Clergymen, lawyers, literary men, editors, and business men were brought together fortnightly for an exchange of thought upon selected topics, and, so long as his health permitted, he was among them. Some of his discoursings are vividly remembered. One night he spoke of the Future of Christianity in a strain of eloquence that seemed to many members to surpass anything they had heard. Another night he fell upon Compte, and proceeded against him in such a humorous way of annihila- tion as would have amused the pseudo-philosopher himself, even while in the process of dissolution. He had the pithiest 512 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. way of plirasing a criticism, and his flashes of wit often hinged on an unexpected comparison. Of a certain proposition involving two ministers in col- league relations, he said it was unscriptural. But why? '' Because it is forbidden to yoke an ox with an ass !" Indulging himself in a humorous exaggeration, he said of the pastors of the churches in three city, that " one was grace Avithout brains ; another, brains without grace ; and the third, without either." One of the victims was fond of repeating this story. An enthusiastic friend met him one morning with the re- mark,— " Doctor, what a pity it is that such a man as you are should not live forever !" The reply came quickly, — " Cleaveland, the world couldn't stand it !" Meeting one who had just come from the ministers' meet- ing, he inquired what was under discussion. " AVorldliness," was the answer. " And who is speaking ?" " Brother ." " Well," rejoined the Doctor, " he knows about it." It is well known to his friends that he looked back with regret on some controversial passages of his history, and ex- pressed sorrow for certain sharp attacks upon the Baptists and Episcopalians. One day he met the Eev. Mr. Twichell and myself in a book-store, where we fell into conversation upon the volume just then published, in which the Rev. Dr. Miller, of Prince- ton, had severely criticised the theology of that region. We had hastily assumed that he would be pleased, or at least amused, by this insurrection against orthodoxy in the very head-quarters of it. We were both surprised and rebuked when he said that the book would effect nothing, /br it ivas written in a had sjnrit. Some one told him that the citizens of Hartford would surely erect a statue of him on the Park, and inquired where he would choose to have such a statue located. He stop- ped, looked all about, and then, pointing with his cane, said, " Down under the bridge yonder !" He disliked to hear the singing in the church criticised in any manner of levity. Some needless remarks provoked him FLASHES OF WIT. 513 to exclaim, " It's worship ! and you might as well criticise the gait of the scape-goat that bears away the sins of the people !" In a discussion some one suggested tliat oar Lord's decla- ration to the penitent thief should be so punctuated as to read, — " I say unto thee to-day, thou slialt be with me in Par- adise." Dr. Bushnell slid in this query, — " I wonder if he looked at his watch !" This reductio ad ahsurduin precipi- tated the meeting into a fit of laughter which could not be checked, but ever and anon broke forth, so as to pretty much smother all further discussion. A somewhat shallow-liberal preacher had been wliisking about in the vicinity with considerable bustle and noise. One said that he had known him twenty years ago as a boy who did chores for his board. " That is what he is doing now," said the Doctor, quickly. It should not be inferred from such things that Dr. Bush- nell w\as overmuch given to satire or sarcasm. His blows fell heavy enough, now and then, to make one's head ache ; but of that sour, cynical spirit which delights and contrives to say sharp, cutting, rasping things he was destitute. He hated that spirit. He was full of gentleness and tenderness towards young ministers, and liad a wonderful way of making them feel quite at home in his presence. He stood on no dignity, having his dignity elsewhere than underfoot, and we gradually forgot his intellectual superiority, being drawn rather to his moral and spiritual supremacy. One scene that occurred at a meeting of the Association of which he was a member, will not soon be forgotten by any who were present. The Doctor had been previously ap- pointed to read a sermon at tliis meeting, which was one of the last that he attended. He was in very feeble health, and the signs of physical distress were only too apparent in his speech and motions. When his part was called, he said, in a very subdued and tender voice, — " Brethren, I am going to read you what is probably the last sermon I shall write ;" and then he announced his .subject, — "Our Relations to Christ in the Future Life." In the circumstances, the mere 514 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. announcement of such a subject was enough to put us all into a state of tender awe. It did not seem boldness in him to be thus looking within the veil. We felt that he was to speak of what he knew, and not out of conjecture merely. As he read on and on, we listened with deepening awe and tenderness to the close. The shadow of the coming sepa- ration fell upon us, and when the reading ceased there was a strange silence. One by one the ministers, as they were called upon, declined to speak. Presently one was called who had long been intimate with the Doctor, and when he shook his head, the Doctor said, " Come, tell us what yon think of it." He hesitated, and then began, — " Dr. Bushnell tells us that this — is — his — last — sermon !" He could get no farther, but gave way and broke out into loud w^ee23ing. And we all wept together with him. It was like the parting of St. Paul with the Ephesian elders. Then we knew how we loved him, and what an unspeakable, irreparable loss his departure would be for us, — that departure which was evidently nigh at hand. The dear old Doctor sat there, calmest of all, his deep, dark eyes glistening with tears, his face radiant like Stephen's, and beheld us with a look of heavenly grace and benediction, until the weeping ceased, and the Master seemed to have made himself manifest in a great peace. The days thereafter, in which, with characteristic steadfast- ness and patience, he slowly traversed the valley of the shad- ow of death, and finally entered into rest, it is not for me to describe. CLOSING YEARS. 515 CHAPTER XXIV. BY F. L. B. CLOSING YEARS. 1870-1876. Last Visit to New Prestou. — A Deep Experience. — Revisions. — Extracts from a Correspondence. — First Summer in Ripton, with Letters. — Notes on Prayer. — Work under Limitations. — Second and Third Sum- mers in Ripton, with Letters. — "A Vacation with Dr. Bushnell," by Professor Austin Phelps. — His Manifold Interests. — Vitality of his Hu- mor.— Publication of " Forgiveness and Law." — Letters concerning it. — Days of Peace. — A New Work begun. — A Severe Illness. — Partial Recovery. — Last Letters. — Gradual Decline. — Naming of the Park. — Death. — Extracts from the Funeral Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Burton. The closing years of Dr. Buslinell's life seemed, to those who knew them intimately, almost as much the opening years of the life to come. The twilight was gently falling on the things of this world, but already the day dawned that was to succeed the brief night. His few public ministrations of a later date than 1870 have found their true place in the fore- going chapter. Though he showed in them his wonted fire and power, he was no longer capable of sustained effort ; and the work he had to do for the world must, in future, be done in seclusion, and little by little, as he was able. Yet this pe- riod of detachment was saved from much of the pain that often attends it, by the great gains he made. "It was not a time of cessation, as of a life that was going out, but had a work of its own and growth and motion to the very end. No most labored argument for immortality could have been like this silent argument of the inward man, waxing so mightily amidst the waning of much that we are accustomed to regard as the physical and intellectual glory of man. It was, after 516 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. all, less an argument for immortality than the disclosure of it, as something already begun. In the summer of 1870, he spent some time on the shore of Lake Waramaug. To that beautiful home region, where the "earl 3^ dew" had fallen upon his young life, he turned the pilgrim steps of his age, and again in life's evening was quickened and refreshed from above. Of this he writes in two letters, — the first to his wife, the second to a daughter : — Warren, August 7, 1870. ... I have had some delightful times and passages since I came here such as I never had before. I never so saw God, never had him come so broadly, clearly out. He has not spoken to me, but he has done what is more. There has been nothing debatable to speak for, but an infinite easiness and universal presentation to thought, as it were hj revela- tion. Nothing ever seemed so wholly inviting and so pro- foundly supreme to the mind. Had there been a strain for it, then it could not be. O my God ! what a fact to possess and know that he is ! I have not seemed to compare him with anything, and set him in a higher value ; but he has been the cell, and the altogether, everywhere, lovely. There is nothing else to compete ; there is nothing else, in fact. It has been as if all the revelations, through good men, nature, Christ, had been now through, and their cargo unloaded, the capital meaning produced, and the God set forth in his own proper day, — the good, the true, the perfect, the all-holy and benignant. The question has not been whether I could some- how get nearer, — nearer, my God, to thee ; but as if he had come out himself just near enough, and left me nothing but to stand still and see the salvation ; no excitement, no stress, but an ainazing beatific tranquillity. I never thought I could possess God so completely. What is to come of it ? Some- thing good and glorious, I hope. Warreu, August 8, 1870. Dear D., — Charley and I are getting on finely together, and I think, when I look in the glass, that I am certainly SPIRIT OF ins LATER LIFE. 517 improved much. Still, I keep my old enemy, or rather he keeps me, and keeps me 2y<'ffinff* in a lively way, — the same old way. And yet I seem often to be nearing the end of it, wasting, as it were, comfortably down upon it. And as the body thins, it also seems to grow transparent, and to let me see through the veil oftener, more habitually and broadly. How it is, I know not, but God comes to me even when I do not go to him or after him, — so great, benignant, pure, and radiant that he sinks all others out of sight. What a wonder is God ! What a glory for us to possess him ! I think you know what the possession of him is, and yet it would not be strange if you could know him a great deal more and more easily. Here, in fact, is the grand impediment to his revelation, — that we make so hard a strain of it. AYhat we want is simply to see. An unfilmed eye is the way. . . . Henceforth there was wonderfully little of the "strain" he so much deprecated, whether between him and his God, or between him and man. To a young friend he said, " If I had my life to live over again, there is one thing I would not do — I would not push." Neither did he wrestle with or for the truth so much as before ; he waited rather for it to shine. The strong onward movement of his life had not ceased, but " the glorious Lord was unto him a place of broad rivers and streams," and he saw the great ocean not afar. With this deep -hidden current, his life passed on through the few outward events of the following winter, already nar- rated. This note of a conversation had with him in the spring of 1871 shows the direction in which his mind was moving : — " He spoke of the pleasure he finds in silent" prayer, often in the night talking with God about the subjects interesting to himself, particularly about his searching for a fuller un- derstandins: of the truths connected with his doctrine of the * A word for coughing, that had amused him, in some book of Scotch dialect. 518 LIFE OF HORACE BUSH^^ELL. Yicarioiis Sacrifice. Feeling tliat the view lie has presented is insuificient, he designs to rewrite parts of the book, and he talks over these points in his communings, desiring to be taught and guided." In these patient seekings of his mind, we see him entering upon that final revision of his opinions, which was the special Avork of his closing years, and which was embodied in his last book, " Forgiveness and Law." Yet for its true germi- nal idea, we must go much farther back to that noble ideal of forgiveness, shaped many years before with strong travail of soul, in the fires of hostility and moral adversity. His friends saw at the time what that sharp experience was doing for his character, but they did not know that it was to do as much for his thinking. It underlies all his subsequent conceptions, and his last thought was built on it. His own ■ recognition of his debt to those quickening trials was ex- pressed with unusual distinctness, in a correspondence which he sustained for some years with a stranger in a distant place, who out of sore troubles had appealed to him for the secret of strength and peace. The two never met, but the relation- ship between them was none the less real ; and after his death, the following extracts, wath headings supplied, were sent by his correspondent, as a contribution to this memoir. Though they all show the spirit of his later life, the first, it will be seen, is specially related to the subject of his last book. Forgiveness. I see you are hanging on the edge of a precipice. Thank God you are not at the bottom. Thousands drop into per- dition from the crag of implacability. Forgiveness is man's deepest need and highest achievement. All the " strong and beautiful things on forgiveness," which you so much admire in my books, were distilled in the alembic of my own expe- rience. I have not had your trials, but my self-mastery was none the less heavy. I know what it is to have the purest motives, most fervent prayers, and most incessant labors mis- apprehended and misrepresented. I know what the moral whipping-post means. But I have found Phil. iv. 13 glori- EXTRACTS FROM A CORRESPONDENCE. 519 oiisly true. What I have done, or Christ in me, you can do likewise. Nothing does God require more explicitly than a clean for- giveness. Your provocations are multiplied and aggravated. The rasp that is drawn across your sensibilities without re- spite for successive years, is rough and sharp enough to re- quire the concentration of all the Jobs in Christendom. Be not dismayed; only believe. Great trials make great saints. Deserts and stone pillows prepare for an open heaven and an angel-crowded ladder. But you are indeed sorely probed, and from the depths of ray soul I pity jon. If this is any comfort to you, let down your bucket to the end of your chain, with the assurance that what is deepest and most ten- der in me is open to your dip. But your victory rests with yourself. Kinghood over the vast territory of self must be, in order to a genuine forgiveness. To tear yourself from yourself, to double yourself up and thrust yourself under your heels, and make a general smash of yourself, and be all the more truly yourself for this mauling and self-annihila- tion,— this is the work before you, and a mighty work it is. To accomplish this, we must be close enough to Immanuel to feel the beating of his heart. By the time you are through your struggle, you will be a god, fit to occupy a seat with Christ in his throne. Kings alone can truly forgive, as kings alone can reign. You know the import of the Cross. Set your heart like a fiint against every suggestion that cheapens the blood of the dear, great Lamb, and you will as surely get the meaning of Christ crucified, as that he left his life in the world. Knowledge and Conscience. You did us both wrong in returning the book I sent you. Although the recital of your severe and protracted sufferings stirred my sympathies as they have never before been stirred by a stranger, I gave you my gift more as an expression of love than in consideration of your destitution. I wanted you to have the book, even though you were as rich as Mr. Stew- art. I honor your conscientiousness, but v;ould yet more honor the illumination of soul that would enable you to enjoy 34 520 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. the favor of God, in keeping what did my heart so much good to bestow. A hardened conscience is a great calamity, and a misguided one is hardly less. A good conscience main- tains a great possibility, being, in a certain sense, always in the line of righteousness, even if it never finds the right. I beg you not to abridge my divine birthright, — the luxury of sacrifice. 'No matter if you own the whole of Pennsylvania, my favor had its birth in an element where states and em- pires are overbalanced by a cup of cold water. I thank God that the Cross has been set up in the world, for thereby have I learned to know what life means. As it was in God before it came in the flesh, I expect to carry it through the gates of pearl, and be eternally in its joy and power. Please receive what I send you as you receive God's un- speakable gift. Sustenance and Security. • Your perplexity originates in a misapprehension of the fig- ure which Christ employs in John x. 9. You ask, " When am I in, and when out ?" You are always in and always out, if so be that Christ is your Door, and Fold, and Shepherd. The figure is a patched one, and lets us into the mind of Christ, just as two patches of natural truth can. The sheep had to go out for pasture, and in for shelter ; but the believer is pastured and sheltered all the time. To be out, as the sheep were out, is to have no covert from the wolf. To be in, as the sheep were in, would be a life of sterility and starvation. "What was alternate with the sheep is simultaneous with the Christian. AYhen we are in, we are out ; and when out, we are in ; and tliis makes just as rich, and sweet, and safe a life as Christ can give. In July, 1871, he went, with one of his daughters, to Bread Loaf Inn, at Ripton, among the mountains of Vermont. Be- fore going, he wrote the following letter to his only remain- ing sister. The letters from Ripton were all to his wife. It will be seen from them how clear it was becoming to him that he had still a work to do. For and by it he lived. The FIRST STAY AT RIPTON. 521 sense of sometliing to be done was ever to lilni the most in- vigorating of medicines. Hartford,July 1,1871. My dear Sister, — Time is a great thief, and, like most other thieves, is always stealing once more — just this once. And yet this way of scolding time is but a poor, thin pretext for covering up our sins. I acknowledge my sins none the less that I have let my recurring obligations to write slide so treacherously by. Alwaj's engaged, always pressed — do it when the pressure is off — and then not do it ! For the last three months I have been going a rather bad way, — undertook too much, and broke down, Now I am re- covering just a little, and next week I projDose to go up into the Green Mountains for the summer. I have a work to do for the next year, and for that my prayer is, "one year more." Then I think my work will be done, and I hope I shall be ready to go. I do not want to stay and wear away into fee- bleness. Let me go, if I may, with some sense in me. I have not heard from you now for a long time, neither from Horace. I did hope, when I was with you last, that my urgent invitation would draw him round here oftener when he goes to Kew York. I feel a great interest in his successes, but more in his character ; for, success or no success, charac- ter stands, a kind of wealth that knows no failure. I wish he would write me and tell me all about himself and you ; for if I am a poor brother in the matter of writing, I do think of you, and that tenderly, very often. I begin to feel more and more distinctly that we are nearing home. Will it not be sweet to meet our dear father and mother, and hear them tell what discoveries they have made ? With great love, yours, Horace Bushnell. Ripton, July 9, 1871. My dear Wife, — I suppose you will be looking for a let- ter, and I am not willing to have you disappointed, though I have nothing specially fresh to communicate, save my always fresh love. This is Sunday evening, just after the passing of a most beautiful shower. I like the place here very much, 522 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. and if it does not give me a spring, nothing will. I have done nothing yet but stroll, and lounge, and cut poles, ex- pecting to-morrow to start the campaign. This is a world of beautiful brooks, and they do somehow manage to catch good supplies of trout. However, I care more for the vent- ure than for the prey ; that is, if I can get force enough to bear it. I was dreadfully depressed some days before I left, and the cloud is a little way lifted, I think — just enough to show that it can be. No matter, I care not much for even that, if I can find the true God's light, and rest in it. There is a day state for the soul, I am quite sure, and I catch some gleams of it ; give me the full revelation, and I ask no more. This shape my sighs have mainly taken, and will take, I think, for weeks to come. Oh, I long to be risen from the dead, and fully alive as I was made to live ! Nothing now looks captivating but to be altogether entered into God and quieted in the in- spirations of true faith. Give my particular love to M and the dear children, and to F as much of blessing. Excuse this poor, sad thing which is meant for a letter, and think it one, if you can, Ripton, July 25, 1871. ... I think, on the whole, that I am gaining a little, only not gaining flesh, rather losing than gaining. But I feel the benefit of a certain resting state, and seem to be getting emp- tied in it for a little more work when I take hold again. I hope too, at times, that I am getting a little freshed for the matters of religion. I sometimes have God very near me, and iniaghie that I hear his voice. I have been putting my- self down to the matter by a more stringent, closer kept way, and I feel the benefit of it. Taking pains for God is good and profitable in all highest liberty, and I sometimes seem to touch that liberty. I most surely want to be in it, not for my soul's sake only, but also for my work's sake. How shall I be able to get insight of my great theme, if I am not let in by a large, free door ? It is also very encouraging to me that such inspirations as come upon me do open my great field more LETTERS FROM RIPTON. 523 and more. Pray that I may be able to open more of the riches here than has yet come to hand, . . . Ripton, August 13, 1871. I am getting on, I think, very slowly. I bear a harder strain of exercise, and seem to be all the while more like ray- self. I really hope I am gaining as a Christian, which is bet- ter than alL God is not so far off, and I come more nearly to rest in him. My only discouragement is that I fall off so easily, if I am not all tlie while at my painstaking. Oh, what a comfort there is in the fact that God is a supreme integer, helping ns up always into range with himself ! lie can put one down upon rest and give him a touch of the everlasting totality, washing and making white, promising to be a com- plete grace for us. I could have no hope at all but for this. This is the righteousness of God upon all that believe. Let me believe, then, totally, and know nothing else. Ripton, August 21, 1871. ... I am going on here with a good deal of satisfaction, and the hope of large improvement. I think my cough and my sin are both moderating a good deal. I bear rugged ex- ercise, and a good deal of it. On Wednesday last, I fished a bout of seven miles or so ; and on Friday, a longer and hard- er one of nine liours on my feet ; and when I reached home I was not specially tired. I have a good many very sweet hours in these wood walks and climbings, never alone, but having my dear, shall I say revered. Friend with me. I had yesterday (Sunday) a de- lightful refreshment in reading, out of Goethe's " Wilhelm Meister," vol. i., the Coiifessions of a Fair Saint. I never read a Christian experience that so beautifully tallied with my own, the main difference being that the Fair Saint never had been much of an unbeliever, save as her friends, over-strict in orthodox}^, were obliged to trouble themselves much on her account. I was never more struck than by the observa- tion, that living in feeling and subjective thought, indepen- dently of outward objects and works, " tends, as it were, to 521 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. excavate us and to undermine the whole foundation of our being." As if it were a way to become hollow and finally vacant. Let us think of this. . . . Yours ever, Hokace Bushnell. During this summer of 1871 and the preceding spring, a series of articles on Prayer had appeared, from his pen, in the Advance. Later he collected these together, and put with them a half-sheet of rough notes, mere hints to his own mind, in case he should carry forward the subject to com- pleteness ; but, for the sake of their suggestiveness, and be- cause they show his first handling of a subject, they are given here just as he left them, without other shaping. Ways of Prayer. ... I fell into a habit years ago of talking with God, and it became so natural, that in all my open spaces I do it without thought. I talk myself often to sleep at night, and open the morning talking, as it were. It is not supplication or ejacu- lation or adoration, but a friendly way of contemplation and personal intercourse. In one view, it is not prayer ; but I so much love it as to sometimes let it take the jDlace of prayer when it should not. — We come to prayer — that is private, personal prayer in form. Here the first thing is to be gathered up for it. E'ever begin a prayer till you are ready to say something with a meaning. The beginning may be so bad as to be fatal to the whole. Great care to be had of language — no hollow generalities, no splurgy matter, nothing fine — still less any lingoish, cant- ish, repetitional stuff by threes — no hand-organ tune. ISTo study to pack in Scripture. Not too much thinking out, must be breathed out in the Spirit. No prayer but by him — can't get it up. Great point, at the same time, to have fixed intent — other- wise wandering thoughts. Supreme law to pray true— we are liars just as far as we WORK UNDER LIMITATIONS. 525 are sinners; and all the infestations that worry down onr prayers are onr inbred falsities, lies, seemings, words, words. Let all statements of our wants, failures, etc., etc., be exact- ly put. Confess sins, never in the gross, but, as far as possi- ble, put in all the mitigations. Put in request with thanksgiving. . .. [Here the notes end abruptly.] His own morning prayers with tlie family grew, at this time, in a deep simplicity and reality. This petition of his remains in the memory of one who heard it uttered : — " Be with US in our smallest concerns, for we are persuaded that it is the skill of life to find Thee in the ordinarj^, to reach unto things spiritual through things temporal ; and we know that anything done well gives great satisfaction to us and to Thee." In the winter of 1871, '72, he began the writing of the book which had so long been shaping itself in his mind ; but his working-power was limited by the infirmities which his summer rest had failed in any great degree to repair. The succeeding letters are the only further indications of the tenor of that year, which passed in alternations of work and enforced rest. For his summer vacation, he went asrain to Eipton. To the Rev. Dr. Bartol. Hartford, March 29, 1872. My deak Friend and Brother, — It is very pleasant to hear from you again, and that in a volume so fresh and thor- oughly quick. I should have said so much sooner, had I not been hard pressed by a work for which I have so little fund left. Even now I have not been able to read all your chapters. I think it does your brain good to be softened, for you have written nothing so brilliant, — almost too brilliant, dazingly so to the mole species like me. I dreaded what you might be going to say ; for I had heard so much of the new radicalism, that I expected a kind of half apostasy from yourself. But I do not see it ; there is nothing, as far as I can see, that differs you specially from what you were. You pronounce the neg- 526 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. atives a little stronger and a little more antagonistically, but are all for The Spirit, as you were of old. I have a certain pity, as I read, for what I should call your unstandardliness. I think of an e^g trying to get on without a shell, and it seems to be a rather awkward predicament, I am very fond of liberty, it is true, but I should not like to have the astro- nomic worlds put up in it, even if it were given them to go by their inspirations. Liberties are good, inspirations are good, but I like to have some standard forces, to which I can advert when I get tired. Well, God help you, as he, no doubt, will and does. Here we touch bottom together, if nowhere else, and it is good, firm land. Truly, as ever of old, yours, Hokace Bushnell. Ripton, August 5, 1873. My dear "Wife, — Your kind letter is received, as doubtless mine, written two days before, has been by you. We are go- ing on here in a way rather uneventful, but with some profit, I hope, as regards the flesh. I have had two rough times out a -fishing; once when out with Mr. Eldridge, when I must have walked about twelve miles in the woods, including two miles of the most awful tussle with logs, briers, and all the horrid fencing of tree -falls, just to pay for getting off the trail and the blazed path by carelessness. But it did not hurt me; and Friday I took about eight miles of brook fishing again in the woods, to show that I am certainly as good as ever. Yesterday I read a sermon from my proofs,* in the parlor. Our weather has been dismally cold, but to-day is the very softness and the just warmth of paradise. D wrote you that I had lost even the recollection of that sub- ject which I so much valued ; but I have recovered it, and shaken hands with it by a most lively greeting. It comes back, I think, to help me just where I was not counting on it, — in my very book itself; a new and most grand element * Referring to his last volume of sermons, on Living Subjects, then in the press. VACATION LETTERS. 527 in the conception of Christ's reconciling mission. I have had it burning in me, as a most welcome tire, for two or three days. Perhaps it will go out in that kind of tire, but never as a truth to be lived in. I figure you all gathered in there with the dear mother, prima inter filias, and having a right good family time. I hope you may have many more, but very many you cannot. Dear Emily is gone, and the integrity of the band is gone, — —gone, that is, for this world, but, I trust, not long; for though it will not stay beneath the sun, it will, I make no doubt, be renewed as you flock in to the heroic mother, after life's battle is over. Love to you all. Horace Bushnell. Eipton, August 19, 1872. I have no fresh news to give you, except that I begin to love you. As to all other news, it begins not here, but runs its currents hitherward, and not hence aAvay. We live here in an eddy as the fishes do, — or, rather, love to do, — so that we know beforehand where to look for them. They do not stream away, and do not take the papers, probably, or get news from abroad by any kind of telegraphy ; but they stay by their eddy, and feed on what comes to them, as also do we. Do not be surprised if I give you a little fish-gospel, when I am so much in it. I think I have been a-fishing three times this last week, getting preciously tired, of course, and yet all for the best. I can see that I am gaining enough to encourage me, and put me in hope of the winter. My book work grows apace, though I only think of it on my back and in my silent hours, not writing anything, but only letting jjiy thoughts go to pasture in it, which they do with a kind of feeling-out practice, and with a very elevating and sweet enjoyment. If I loved the formal duties more, and kept up in them more faithfully, I should think I was a Christian. Yours, H. B. Coming home in the autumn, he put all his re-enforcement of strength into work upon his book, and so passed on into 528 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. the next year of 1873, wliicli was in its events very much a repetition of the preceding one. As summer aj^proached, he began to plan for his annual vacation. To the Eev. Dr. George Bacon. Hartford, May 6, 1873. My deak Sir, — Recollecting the kind interest you took in the proposed revision of my book, and the concern you ex- pressed lest I might be going to make a surrender, or some- thing like it, I should like amazingly to go over the ground witli you, and get your impressions of what I have done. I am now through with the principal matter, though two or three chapters will naturally be modified to fit their changed position. I am planning to spend two months, this summer, at Rip- ton. If it could happen that you will be there and let me bore you ad libitum, liow nice it would be! I want sugges- tions, correctives, strictures of all sizes. With much regard and many pleasant recollections, I am yourSj Horace Bushnell. To his Wife. Ripton, July 14, 1873. My dearest Wife, — We are safe arrived, as you see, and are entered on what appears to be a good beginning. We had rain several times on our way, passing through areas well wa- tered and reeking in wet. I really hope you have had your turn of shower before this, but have some painful doubt. I see, by a little scrap in the Spfingfield Repuhlican^ that the State-house battle is probably carried. Hang up the bow and the quiver now, and be at peace ! Thank God, my days of war are ended ! I will not fight again, even for Hart- ford. I am delighted now to spread myself out on the quiet of a last age, which I hope and pray may be my best. Per- liaps my irresj)onsibility, my unengagedness and clearness of burden, may do something for me physically ; if not, I hope it will spiritually, at least. LAST VISIT TO RIPTON. 529 Rijiton, August 10, 1873. ... I must do yon the credit to say, that when you pro- pose to rise higli enough to take the one-way current, you advance a thought which is most unwontedly eloquent. There may be some doubt of the one-way current on which the ballooner proposes to throw himself, but there is none whatever of the fact, as pertaining to the currents of life- movement in God, And here is our difficulty always, in the matter of stability and progress, that we do not pitch our levels high enough to keep the element where there is no variableness or shadow of turning. We only skim along the world's surface, where the winds are changeful and gusty, sometimes thrown up a little, as often pitched downward. There is another element, I am sure, in God, that is high enough to be an abiding serenity and a movement all one way ; that will set us on steadily as in drift, unnotified, as it were, of the objects passed or the progress we make. It will even be as if they all were drifting with us in the same silent river, unvexed by the disturbing forces below. I have sometimes seemed to be moving in this flood, lifted and carried on, I knew not how. I have at least felt the peace of it enough to be sure of a possible life and way, where there is no jostle or wavering. I think I just now feel the attractive- ness of such a possibility, and feel it the more that, as life draws to a close, I am the more disposed to float and not to fight. I asked for an examination by Dr. Avery, who has made us an all-too-short visit ; and he found, what I myself sus- pected, that I have but one Inng left. The other is still in tolerable w^orking order, and may last for a time, long enough, I hope, to do what is left me. . . . Ripton, August 21, 1873. I think the sympathy you bestow on my depression is a little more subjective in the meaning than you know. I can say with truth that my broken state, or the discovery of it, has not cost me a sad hour. It has put me under a little stress of concern, lest my shortened condition may snap easi- ly enough to drop me out of life, before a certain point of 530 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. my work is welded and set duly together ; which is fairly to be deprecated. I am now completely through, and my mind clear. Nothing now but to vegetate ; only I am a little con- cerned lest the vegetation will have less stimulus, and will do me less good than to carry some light burden. We shall see. I think I perceive that my breath is gradually shortening, but I am strong enough to bear more stress of exercise, — walking and bowling,— than most persons even younger than I. And I do about as well at bowling as anybody. I am very glad to hear that our dear mother is doing so well. Having a new lease given, I hope she will be ready to pay the rent. Give my parting love to K , and my most unpopely benediction to L . Yours ever, H. Bushnell. During this third and last stay at Bread Loaf Inn, he was obliged to relinquish his fishing excursions, and content him- self with more moderate forms of exercise. But these physical losses were made up to him by certain rare pleasures. There were present in the house some very accomplished musicians, among them, his gifted fellow -townsman, Henry Wilson, whose name is now also numbered among Hartford's hon- ored dead. Their music afforded to the tired thinker the purest refreshment and inspiration. He had some delight- ful intercourse, also, with two men whom he felt it a great good fortune to have met there,— Professor Phelps, of Ando- ver, and the Kev. Dr. George Bacon. His previous acquaint- ance with the latter now ripened into a very real friendship. The two went over together the forth-coming book, the elder receiving from the younger all that careful, critical considera- tion of his work, that he had so much desired. Since then, the two friends, so many years apart in age, have both passed into the renewal of the other world. In 1876, when death had thus made that summer sojourn and its converse matter of open history. Professor Phelps published, in the Chris- tian Union, two papers, entitled "A Vacation with Dr. Bush- nell," — remarkable alike for their felicitous portrayal, and for the candor which enabled the writer to apprehend thus "A VACATION WITH Dli. BUSHNELL." 531 sympathetically one in so different a key of thinking from himself. The following quotations are the larger part of these invaluable reminiscences : — " Three years ago, it was my privilege to spend the major part of a summer vacatiou with this rare man in the Green Mountains. Some impressions which I received of his mental structure, and of his theolo- gy, and of his religious character, deserve recording. " He was visibly worn-out by disease. His countenance bore the look of distant, yet fast-coming, dissolution, which but one malady gives to the human eye. Yet he was as full of courage, as full of life and of his life's work, as he could have been when thirty years younger. Few men have ever impressed me as being so electric with vitality at all points as he was. He was an enthusiast in his love of rural sights, and sounds, and sports. In little things as brimful as in great things, he seemed the heau ideal of a live man. The supremacy of mind over the body was some- thing wonderful. One could not but feel a new assurance of the soul's immortality, in witnessing the easy and unconscious power with which his spirit swayed the physical frame which was secretly enticing him down to the grave. For seventeen years he had kejjt death at bay, and, at the time I speak of, medical diagnosis revealed that but one lung sup- ported his remnant of life ; yet that semiform of life seemed equal to the prime of many a hale man. The abandon of his recreations in the bowl- ing-alley, where he was a boy again, and his theological talks of a Sun- day evening, told the same story. ' Dying, and behold we live,' re- curred once and again in listening to the conversations in which he was sure to be the centre and the seer. " I have never heard from any other man, in the same length of time, so much of original remark. ... It was not his way to talk for the sake of colloquial courtesy. He never made conversation. He would not as- sent to your say out of conventional politeness. From no courtly pres- ence on earth could he ever have backed out with meek obeisance. Nothing was more natural to him than to write letters of advice to Popes. His common talks were varied by similar quaint ways. If you said a silly thing or a dull one, you must carry it ; he would not help you out of it. If he had himself nothing worth saying to utter, he kept silent. He could make silence mean more than the speech of other men. Awkward pauses would sometimes happen. But when he spoke, all ears were alert with the assurance that they should hear something which they would not willingly lose. The cloud in the western sky, the shad- ow on Bread Loaf Mountain, the song of the oriole in the api^le-tree, the trout in the brook, the clover in the fields, the habits of the mountain- ash, were all hints to his mind of something different from their sugges- tions to other observers. Language, too, in his talk as in his books, he used often not as other men. 532 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. " One could not long discourse with him, even on the common things and in the undress of life, without discovering the secret of his solitude in the theological world. That solitude was not in him, as it is in some men, an aflfectation of independence. It was in the original make of the man. He was by nature a solitaire in his thinking. Nothing struck him as it did the average of men. He was not one of the average. He took in all things, and reflected back all things, at angles of his own. He never could have been a partisan. With many of the tastes of leader- ship he could never have led a party or founded a school. Still less could he have been a follower of other leaders. It was not in him to herd with his kind. He recalled to one's thoughts Wordsworth's apos- trophe to Milton : " ' Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.' "At the time I mention, he was preparing for the press the last edi- tion of his work on the ' Atonement.' Several times he spoke of it as the only thing for which he desired to live. He brought the unfinished sheets from his sick-room to the mountains, hoping to gain ' force enough' to ' round out' his views by his latest ' insight.' Other subjects of theo- logical controversy he would have been glad to undertake, for on them all, he believed that he had conceptions which no other man had ; but he would say of them, ' There isn't force enough left in me to express myself upon them.' " It was obvious that his own ideal of his life's work was that of discov- ery. If he had nothing to say to the world which was fresh to his own mind, he had nothing worth his saying or the world's hearing. Some men spend the closing years of their lives in gathering up, and labelling, and storing in the world's libraries, the fruit of labors long past, and which to themselves have become old. Dr. Bushnell seemed not to re- gard exhumed accumulations of literature as worth reviving. A thought once buried did not deserve resuscitation. That which he should say to his fellow-men should be as new to himself as to them. When he had exhausted his power of discovery — his ' insight,' as he was fond of call- ing it — he had lost some of the prime qualities of power in communica- tion. ... He was a looker on, and up, to the firmament of Truth ; and whatsoever he saw there he proclaimed to the waiting multitudes below, or to the few who trusted his vision. When the vision ended he was si- lent. Of errors in his published opinions he spoke as freely as if they had never been his. ' If I see men as trees walking, I do not know that it is my fault.' Not till the superlative vision was vouchsafed to him was it his mission to tell that. The vital thing was the latest discovery. 'The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream.' He was emphat- ically a seer, not a reasoner. The last and least thing that concerned him was the consistency of his present with his past opinions, or of either with the revelation of to-morrow. "A VACATION WITH DR. BUSHNELL." 533 " lie cherished a profound disrespect for large li])raries. He thought that the burning of the Alexandrian Library was probably no loss to the world ; and that, jjerhaps, the major jjart of the libraries of the British Museum and of Paris could not be worth their storage. Psychological- ly, his mind was such as the Grecian Mythology represented in the Sibyls; and such as a purer revelation might naturally elect as its prophet. If he had been a pupil of Socrates, he would have had absolute faith in the ' Daemon.' . . . " He spoke of the first edition of ' The Vicarious Sacrifice ' as erroneous in the sense of being but a partial vision, yet true enough so far as it went. Of the revision of it, on which he was then engaged, he spoke as likely to be regarded by his readers as a return towards the current evangelical faith, so far, at least, as it should be understood by them. It was amus- ing to see the simplicity with which he distinguished between his real faith and that e'uloloii of it which words could convey to readers. Lan- guage was to him, at the best, but a wretched makeshift for the con- veyance of thought. He conjectured that perhajis in heaven pure music would be a medium of expressing thought, superior to the most perfect of human dialects. " On the whole, he made upon me the impression of a mind still in movement on the central theme of the Christian foith ; not doubtful so far as he had discovered, yet not resting in ultimate convictions. ... He held himself to be substantially at one with the great body of the Church in all that they really believed of the ' faith in Christ.' Yet whether he was so or not concerned him little. Truth lay between him and God, not between him and the Church. He was simply one of God's seers. He was commissioned to paint the vision precisely as he saw it in the Mount. The reception of it by other minds was their affair, not his. Such, as nearly as I could gather it from his fragmentary conversations, was his theory of the true work of a theologian ; rather oihis work as a theologian ; for he was very gentle in his criticisms of the work of other men. He had his own telescope, and they had theirs; that the instru- ments differed was no evidence that both might not be true ; the field of vision was very broad. I am confident that he has gone from us with no such idea of his own dissent from the fiiith of his brethren as they have. "And the sense of that dissent, I must confess, grew dim in my own mind when I came near to the inner s])irit of the man. That was beau- tifully and i)rofoundly Christ-like, if that of uninspired man ever was. Be the forms of his belief what they may have been, he was eminently a man of God. Christ was a reality to him. Christ lived in him to a de- gree realized only in the life of devout believers. I had heard him criti- cised as brusque in manner, even rude in his controversial dissents. Scarcely a shade of that kind was perceptible in him at that time. The gentleness of womanhood breathed in his few and cautious expressions 53i LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. of Cliristian feeling. Of the sure coming of Dcatli he spoke reservedly, but with unqualified trust. The charity of a large fraternal heart cliar- acterized his judgments of men. His whole bearing was that of one whom time and suft'ering had advanced far on towards the closing stages of earthly discipline. " Now and then a glimpse appeared of rougher speech ; as when, ob- jecting to the use of the Lord's Prayer in public worship, he condensed the whole argument against it by saying, rather gruffly, to an Episcopal friend, ' I don't want to say prayers, I want to ^?ray.' But his general bearing was that of one whom life had chastened to the utmost, and who was then walking thoughtfully far down the valley of gentle shad- ows. We discussed many of his clerical critics, who have handled his opinions without lenity, and I do not recall from him a single caustic judgment of one of them. " Diifering from him essentially, as I supposed, in his theory of the Atonement, I still could not but see that, in its effects upon his personal character, that theory had been to him apparently just what the faith of other believers in Christ is to them. It was indeed no theory ; it was a faith and a life. Few men have I known to whom Christ as a Saviour seemed to be so profound a reality as to hiui. Christ had been obvious- ly the centre of his thinking and believing for two-score years. The results had come to him in answer to the inquiries of a struggling spirit. In no other answer could he find rest ; but in that he did rest, with a trust as deep and calm as I have ever heard from the lips of a believer. " His theory of the impotence of language was as vividly illustrated in his expression of personal faith in Christ, as in that of any mystery of theology. Some of his published utterances to that effect take on a new significance to one whose imagination can reproduce the melting eye and the subdued pathos of love, with which he repeated them in the stillness of the evening, and among the shadows of the mountain. To the hope wdiich I once expressed, that in his revision of his volume he would hold fast to the faith in a Divine Sacrifice for sin, he replied, with inimitable emphasis, and throwing both hands upon my shoulders, ' I do hold it fast.' "What shall we say of such men in our theological classifications? Where shall we locate them in the schools ? It will never do to set them aside as heretics, and leave them there. They are not heretics, in any invidious sense of the title. If faith means character, if 'the faith in Christ' be anything more than the most lifeless of ossified forms, such men are believers beyond the depth of venerable creeds. So much the worse for ourselves, and for the formulas which we revere, will it be, in the ultimate and decisive judgment of mankind, if our faith can- not find a place for such believers, near to our hearts because near to Christ." LETTER TO AN OLD FRIEND. 535 The following letter was written by Dr. Bushnell after liis return home in the autumn : — Ilartford, October 14, 1873. My deak Bkotiier WmsiiiP, — I do not sec what reason you can have to think your writing to me in former times may have lessened my interest in you. Nothing can be far- ther from the truth. I remember always, with fresh affec- tion, a letter you wrote me in California. And now let me thank you for your most welcome note. It is really good to feel that I touch somebody, and somebody me. I do not think that my faith towards God is dej)arted, but I am sadly dried in by isolation. I work in my subjects, but such other work and communion as carries me out towards persons, I do badly miss, and sometimes it makes me jealous of losing hold of God also. Your concern for me is not without reason, and I thank God most heartily that he has put you on expressing it. One thing you may be sure of, that if it should not be necessary for you to save me from falling, you will certainly have put me in caution, and given me more strength to stand. I hope I shall stand ; I think I shall. As I am con- sciously near my limit, my confidence grows. I only wish that I had more relation to persons, and less exclusive rela- tion to subjects. In this latter, I want the opening power of faith to keep me in true light. Pray for me, as I am doing for myself, that I may have it. In great love, II. B. At the close of the year, he wrote to Dr. George Bacon, " I am going steadily down, but contriving meantime to work a little." So long as any work w^as in his hands, there were always possible improvements to be made ; and in this in- stance he' felt a peculiar anxiety to give his book the benefit of every fresh suggestion, whether his own or another's. The most important chapters w^ere read before a circle of friends, and the revised manuscript was put into the hands of his younger brethren, Dr. Parker and Mr. Twichell, with a de- sire that they would bestow their "most fearless criticisms" upon it. But it must not be inferred that he was all the time dwell- 35 536 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL, ing in tlie atmosphere of his own work. He was never a prisoner to that, or to his infirmity. He went out every day and in all weathers, never letting himself get shut in be- hind the walls of invalidism. If, through some unusual access of disease, he was shut into his study, that quiet retreat seem- ed to be in telegraphic communication with the great world, whose movements no door could keep out. Never, to the last, was he tempted to cry, " The glow, the thrill of life, — where, where do these abound ?" They abounded every- where,— in religion, in society, in politics, in science, in life. The mention of science recalls his intense interest in all its latest revelations, especially in those relating to the Cor- relation of Forces. Far from fearing the results of such investigations, he w^elcomed them, not only for their scien- tific beauty and value, but because he believed them to fit so perfectly into the wider science of life, and to furnish im- ages and interpretations so grand in the higher ranges of thought. Neither did the play-side of his nature sink into silence or disuse. It was as natural as ever for him to put things pict- nre-wise, so that the most common things took a fresh signifi- cance under his touch. Resting near a window one day, he noticed how the tall sycamores at the foot of his garden had stripped off their outer bark, showing the satin-whiteness be- neath, and exclaimed, in a sort of joyful sympathy, " They have come out clean-limbed, like wrestlers, for the match." For inquiries about his health he had an infinite number of replies. Once, on his coming down-stairs, one of the famih' inquired, " Have you had a good nap?" " Yes," he answered, smiling brightly, " I've just come ashore." Sometimes, when asked, "How is your health, Doctor?" he would reply, "I haven't any ;" or, " AYell, I'm here yet ;" or, again, " Oh, Fm one of the ' vestiges of creation.' " To one who met him, when in visibly failing condition, with the greeting, "I hope, sir, you are very well," he rejoined, with humorous shortness, " You know I'm not !" He was without even allowable concealments about him- self, and really exaggerated a diSiculty of hearing, which VITALITY OF HIS HUMOR. 537 might, for some time, have been covered by a little adroit- ness, speaking of himself as "deaf" long before there was any real obstruction to his pleasure in social intercourse. So of his age. While practically he ignored it, and was accom- plishing more than many a younger person, he still, years be- fore his death, called himself " an old man." But a curious stranger who, in one of the last years of his life, opened con- versation with him in the street with the rather searching in- quiry, " How many years does it take to make the locks as white as yours, sir?" received the baffling reply, "Oh, any- where from forty-five to ninety." But how impossible to reproduce what was the very touch- and-go of mind and speech, and glances from memory, as it did from the instant! These were only sparks from the forge, — brighter for the gathering darkness, and signs that the busy working life within had not ceased. During the spring of 187^, he was occupied in correcting the proof-sheets of his book, then in the press, and, owing to this and a diminution of strength, w\as obliged to forego other expenditures of himself, in which he had always taken pleas- ure. About this time, he met in the street a friend, who urged him to go into the ministers' meeting, giving him the subject of discussion, — "Abiding in Christ." He did not feel able to go in, but said, "If he went he would say one thing, — that abiding in Christ is to abide. It is an act. We are not to hash in Christ." Late in the spring, his book, the work so identified with this last period of his life, was published, under the title, "Forgiveness and Law." There was a relief and yet a sad- ness in the cessation of his task. The reaction which always follows at such a time was felt by him in an unusual sense ; for the lieat and motion of his mind had had much to do with keeping the fading embers alive. The letters which he wrote after the publication of his book show that his thoughts still followed it, after his hands had let it go. In July, he went, for health's sake, to ISTorfolk, in the high- lands of his own State, as he did not feel equal to any more distant journeying. 538 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. To Dr. George Bacon. Hartford, May 4, 1874. My deak Friend, — I am rejoiced above measure to hear you speak as you do of being well. I was afraid, as I came along in your letter, that you were not going to say it. But the best wine was to be last. First or last, I am truly thank- ful to God. Only the next thing I have to say is, looli, out., make haste slowly. You will make a great deal more of your resources now, as I strongly believe, if you can be a little stingy in expenditure. I have just written a letter to Scribner to send you the book. If I keep it back till it comes on here, and then inscribe it in due palaver, it will reach you full a week later. Perhaps we can manage to get in the palaver after- wards. I have a queer feeling about this book. It is the newest thing I have written, so I think ; and I seem to have struck out in it beyond the sight of land, uncertain of everything, yet afraid of nothing, and, in some sense, confident of finding my way into harbor somewhere. Yours ever, Hoeace Bdshnell. To the Hev. Amos Cheselrough. Hartford, May 21, 1874. My dear Brother, — The formalities do not require me to answer your letter, but I do it of my free inclination. Your little critique hits the point admirably, and does me good like a medicine, — particularly what you say of my possible fur- ther advance, living long enough to allow it. The fact is, that I have never published a book that brought such a load on my feeling as this has brought. Kot that I have any mis- giving as to the truth of my doctrine; I am more than com- monly assured of it. But it is the newest thing I have done for the matter of it, and I have been suffering real op- pression of mind from the uncertainty I am in, lest I may not have been able to adjust myself rightly in the statement. What position other minds are in, I have not been sure LETTERS ABOUT HIS LAST BOOK. 539 enough, to set my points accurately, as true address requires. Where is my public ? how shall I put this and that to be rightly taken ? — has been my constant question. It has been with me as with one shooting in the dark, and I have been tormenting myself lest I may have lost my truth by resolv- ing it faultily. Your letter has, in this view, been a great relief. You do not say that I am out in the missing of my figure, but that, if I should live long enough, I might go far- ther and do better. I will not, therefore, lie awake contriv- ing how I might have drawn one thing or another so as to be justified in it. I am the more relieved here, that I find you so beauti- fully appreciative in other things where I know that I am right. I do think that I have gained something for the Gospel, by bringing it closer down to the analogies of nature. It is a very great discovery to me that Law and Command- ment pack the world full, as they do, of their analogies, com- posing, as it were, their analogue of the great salvation. I thank you heartily. Yours truly, Horace Busiinell. To Dr. George Bacon. Hartford, June 1, 1874. My dear Friend, — I was getting quite concerned for you, that I heard nothing from you, lest you had broken yourself down by overdoing in your new-begun labors. I had made up my mind that I must write to-day, and learn what had be- come of you. Your letter that came to hand Saturday was therefore a great relief, and gave me a new spring of satisfac- tion. Among my other thoughts, coming in multitude, was a fear that you had put yourself into my affairs at too great cost, and I began to blame myself that I had not put you un- der injunction, proscribing for you any right to engage in the question of my book. But you have done it, I see, already, and are not dead; for which latter I am specially grateful, and would be also for the former, if I were quite sure that you suffer no damage. Do be careful now, as you pitch into 5i0 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. your eugageraents, not to go beyond your limit. Let it be a fact that there are a great many things which you had better let alone, however well you can do them. I have been doing just nothing since the book is out, and really do not expect ever to do much. I am very weak and very short of breath. I may last a year, or even live as a re- mote possibilit}^, but I shall never be girded again, I think. I have some thoughts of trying to patch up a few notes that I may see to be wanted, and hung on at the end, — one in particular, referring to the lack you speak of in my last chapter. Perhaps you do not mean what I do ; but I want, in particular, to show that Christ, holding the three points set forth, could by no possibility hold any one of the forms of legal atonement offered by the schools. Thinking these things, the church-orthodox thinking is forever out of his reach. . . . To the Christian Union. Norfolk, Conn., August 3, 1874. Will you thank for me the writer, whoever he may be, of the notice of my late book, " Forgiveness and Law ?" It is not my way to thank writers of notices in this manner, and I do it here simply because of my appreciation of the service rendered. I have been doubtfully and somewhat painfully exercised regarding this book, and it is a great relief to me to lind that it is not as bad as I feared, — that, after all, the argument is so far out, that a man of real insight can accu- rately report the same in a short notice. I was in a country where there were no roads, and was much tormented by the question where my track should be laid. I had great confidence in my argument, but there was no form ready for it, and a great variety of forms was possi- ble. I chose what seemed to be the best, but doubted final- ly whether it was not a mistake, and after the publication, doubted more than ever. Hence it is that I am so greatly obliged by your experiment ; it gives me better hope. And let me further add, that I even coincide with your query, whether I do not press my analogy " over-far." I certainly do, if you put, in the analogy, matter of obstruction, LETTERS. 541 as regards forgiveness, that belongs to our moral oblitj^uit}-. The analogy holds only so far as our proper nature is com- pared with the divine nature. Perliaps I did not make the point sufficiently distinct. The gradations through which I traced the idea of forgiveness up to its summit, were meant simply as a stair for ascending into the idea or the difficulty of its realization, not as being in this line a part of the analo- gy, but only a part, in the last degree or highest fact, of a dif- iiculty encountered by goodness. I shall not take it ill if you let me know to whom I am be- holden for this valued criticism.* In true Christian regard and brotherhood, yours, Horace Bushnell. Norfolk, August 10, 1874. My ever dear Wife, — I read your little bookf right through at once, and liked it all the more that I could see the fervors it raised in you. It is really a most interesting, profoundly exciting affair, especially in the matters quoted from the heathen apostles. What could they do but seize the love of God, so gloriously commended to them in the Lord Jesus Christ, — no Lord Jesus to them, but only Jesus? We are half tempted to say, as we read. Well, what more of Gospel do we want than simply to believe in the love, and take it as our Gospel to convert the world with, joining hands with all that will join hands with us, be they called by what- ever name ? Sol said when I came to the end. But thire was an after-thought showing a difference. What can ever make up the Gospel we want but to have the love coming in the line of a forgivingness ? It really does not come to be a salvation till tho love is seen making cost, and coming after as by sacrifice. It would not be difficult for even a heathen to believe in God as love ; but to believe that he comes after * He learned that the Rev. Dr. Howard, of Catskill, N. Y., was the au- thor of the criticism that had so much satisfied him. t A Lecture on Missions, delivered by Max jMiiller in Westminster Abbey, with an introductory sermon by Dean Stanley. 542 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. US through painstaking and sorrow would be very far off, — ah, it is impossible ! Still, this exposition of the heathen will show our missions the horrible mistake they are under in the assumptions they make, and mitigate, how largely, their condemnations. . . . Your loving husband, H. B. These letters admit us to Dr. Bushnell's more private and informal comments on his last book, which, perhaps more than any other of his works, needs all the side-lights that can be thrown on it, two of its noblest features having met with some misapprehension, — the candid avowal of "the arrival of fresh light," and the visible outreach after union with oth- ers, of a mind so peculiarly independent in its first departure. So far as this misapprehension has not been of the predeter- mined kind, it is hoped that this history of his mind may have done much to remove it, and to prepare the reader to iind in this book the last earthly stage of a harmonious de- velopment. Dr. Bushnell's mind has shown itself to be not merely constructive, but reproductive in an eminent degree. One thought was with him the seed of another thought. lie cared not at all to leave behind him a " system of thought," a machine, however ingenious or powerful. What he did want to leave, the only thing it was in him to leave, was a living, growing, harmonious conception of truth, which should be* seed-thought to others. If this, springing up, should in time outgrow him, so much the better, he would have said, so that it only grew. The movement of his mind was not mi- gratory but progressive — an evolution, an upbuilding; and if his final conclusions seem widely removed from his early con- ceptions, they yet spring as naturally and continuously from them, as the topmost branches from the root, or the finial from the foundation. We have already seen that the ideal of forgiveness on which the book is based had been, for years, a shaping ele- ment in his character and thought. The sermon, to which he refers in the Introdnction, and in the writing of which the RELATIONS OF HIS LAST BOOK. 543 far-reaching analogies of that ideal first dawned upon him, was that on Christian Forgiveness in " Christ and his Salva- tion," and was published as early as 1864. "When at last he had "traced the idea of forgiveness to its summit," a new view was opened to him of tlie life and sacrifice of Christ in their relations to God himself. He became conscious of a limitation in his former view, as having regarded too exclu- sively the manward relations of that great subject, whose two sides he saw to be essential to each other and vitally connect- ed. It was as if the living form of Truth herself had ap- ^Deared to him with both wings outspread. This is the history in brief of his last book, as related to his first treatise on the "Vicarious Sacrifice," published some ten years before. So great was now his desire to set forth the subject in its unity, that he even proposed to discontinue the latter half of the earlier book, and to replace it with this later one, in which he had already incorporated all that he considered of essential value in the part to be relinquished. It is as noble as it is unusual for a man to be willing to say openly of anything he has done, " Let that go, to make w^ay for something better;" but unfortunately it is liable to be taken for a more total renunciation than he intended ; and, besides, he is not always the best judge of the value of his thought to others. Under the influence of such suggestions. Dr. Bushnell became doubtful of the wisdom of his design ; and after his death, which left the question still open, it was decided that, in the new edition of his works, both books should appear intact, but as the first and second volume of one work — " The Vicarious Sacrifice." Thus his view of the Atonement is represented historically, yet with something of the unity he desired. To feel this advance in his thought, and to be" permitted so far to complete the expression of it, gave a meaning and in- spiration to his later years. So remote from his mind was the idea of any desertion of his onward way, that the greatest difficulty he met in writing his last book was, as his letters show, in opening to the minds of others a region so new and unexplored. He is sailing on, " out of sight of land ;" he is 544 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. in a new country, " where there are no roads;'' "it is the newest thing I have done," he says. Such was his feeling about the book, and such is the atmosphere of the book itself. The sense it imparts of on-looking vision, and of being ever on the verge of further discovery, must be stimulating and enlarging to the mind, and is remarkable as coming from so old a man. In apparent contrast with this, is his adoption of certain old theological terms and the readjustment of himself to thein, so that the most ancient and the most recent seem curiously blended in his pages. This it is which has caused the book to be called " a book of reconciliation ;" but it is so by enlargement, and not by surrender. He had faith in the old historic names of truth, and had been always seek- ing to " restore their living and flexible senses," and to find that larger, more inclusive interpretation of which he be- lieved them capable. Sometimes he had succeeded, in a de- gree at least, as by his use of the word vicarious in his for- mer treatise. Whether in this he was able to do as much for the word j^rojjitiation, so stiffened by long usage, does not yet appear. Certainly his presentment of it differs at the root from anything which now commonly bears the name. The central idea of the book, that on which all its argu- ments turn, is the self-sacrijice of God in Christ. In the very title of his first book, " God in Christ," he had struck the key- note ; but now he heard the music of a fuller harmony. That idea had become to him the centre of the universe, and in its own nature a reconciler. For the nearer he drew to the cen- tre, the wider became his kinship, the more direct his rela- tions, with the great outlying circle of thought. And there can be no doubt that it was part of his hope for this book, that it might prove to be a meeting-place for the thought of the past and the thinking of the present on this great theme, whence they might flow on together by a channel made wide enough to receive them. But he sent it into the world with many misgivings mingled with his hope, — hope, because of the truth he believed it to contain ; misgivings, lest he had failed to present that truth in its clearness and fulness. And yet that which he was almost tempted to call its failure is, IMPORT OF THE BOOK. 545 perhaps, its greatest strength. It is not a completed message, " the conclusion of the whole matter ;" it is something better than that, — an open way. It lets us " feel the window lifted where the fresh air blows," and reveals the light of a day not yet fully risen. What Dr. George Bacon wrote him of the last cliaj)ter is true, in a sense, of the whole book : — " The last chapter is a real addition to the work, and will be more valued by-and-by than it will be at first. My criti- cism would be that it is too condensed, that people will not see how much there is in it, in the lack of amplification and illustration, which you would have supplied if your strength had been larger. It is an oi^ening-up of a new way of thought, and it will take time before people will begin to travel over it. But they will find out presently that it is a way in which it will be worth while to travel." This is the utmost that its author could have desired. On one of the last pages of that last chapter, which looks for- w^ard more than any other part of the book, and is very pe- culiarly his own, he says: — "It is not a summation of doc- trine that we w^ant. We have had enough of that. What we want a great deal more is something to give us greater breadth of standing and greater vitality of idea." There is probably no one sentence of his that could more fitly close his intellectual work. He returned home from Norfolk, in that autumn of 1874, less renewed than ever before by change of scene and rest. But he accepted so courageously his increasing limitations, that he made them seem almost like some better kind of freedom. This picture of him, by the hand of a fellov?--min- ister and townsman, shows him very much as he appeared at that time : — " His busy mind -nronght on to the end. His brain teemed with new work, and last year he told us of schemes of his, which lie, the man of seventy-three, was most eager to begin and complete. That fiery, en- ergetic mind struck out its sparks to the last. It was always a great treat to hear him talk, and whoever often heard him would cease to speak 54:6 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. of the obscurity of his diction. He gesticulated but little, but once in a while there was an imperious stroke with the forefinger, and a char- acteristic elevation of the shoulder, the like of which we have seen in no other man, which added new emphasis and point to his words. Even when too weak to walk, his voice would ring with a martial tone, his utterance glow witli impassioned fervor, and tlie energy of his thought would make every one thrill within the hearing of his voice. Within these last years all who have known Dr. Bushnell have seen in him a growing mellowness which was partly the ripening of old age, but something even more than this. Even theological opponents have been disarmed by the great spirituality and tender words of his last years. . . . "... Who of us does not remember his spare figure, muscular, active, with that energetic walk of his ; not hasty, indeed leisurely, but with a kind of spring in every motion ? Who does not recall the iron-gray hair, tossed carelesoly about ; the stout oak stick ; the garments studious- ly unprofessional, yet never careless ; a happy remove from both elegance and roughness? Who has not seen that face, so full of expression; the skin, of late so clear and transparent ; the eye, large, deep, and inquiring ; the easy recognition, the flash of wit, the blunt reply ? These are all mat- ters of common observation in Hartford ; for he was one of the notables of the city; and when he walked abroad, many ej-es followed him with reverential and eager looks. How we shall miss that marked figure, that cordial greeting, that eager look !" " God spared his life till all men were at peace with hira," another has said. The granite, roughness, the nigged pioneer force of his early days had disappeared, or showed through only here and there as the massive material of character; and the tenderness, the sweetness, the bearing and forbearing strength of his nature came to their perfection. He was "ri- pening in the summer of God's love." Yet even, now he did not, as he had once forcibly expressed it, " bask in Christ." His mind was responsive still to the Divine inspirations, and when they breathed, spread its sails as obediently, if less boldly,' ready to push on or to wait, as the word should be. This state of equipoise is revealed in the words with which, at that late hour, he opened a new work, doubtful if he should ever do more than begin it. At the head of the first page is the title, — " Inspiration : Its Modes and Uses, whether as rehited to Character, Kevelation, or Action." Below this he writes : — A NEW WORK BEGUN. 54:7 I begin this day, January 22, 1ST5, a tract or treatise on the Holy Spirit and his work, which I have long been desir- ing to prepare, but have been detained formerly by other en- gagements, and of late by advanced age and the growing in- capacity of disease. It does not seem to me that I can ever fully execute so heavy a work ; but I can begin it, and God will permit me to go on, or stop me short when he pleases, and to him I gladly submit the result. Onl}', considering how much of divine insight will be needed to speak worthily of a subject so interior and deep, and so far removed from the mere natural intelligence of men, I invoke most earnestly his constant presence with me, and the steady oversight of his counsel. Help me, O Eternal Spirit, whose ways I am engaged to interpret, to be in the sense at all times of thy pure teach- ing, and to speak of what thou givest me to presently know ! Seeing that I have no strength left to be expended on su- perfluities, and scarcely enough to serve my present necessi- ties, I make engagement with myself not to be over-exacting in matters of form and rhetorical finish. It must be sufii- cient for matters of style, that I represent my glorious Friend, the Holy Spirit, according to the practical truth of his rela- tionship,— the mind of the Spirit is to be my law, as it is my subject. In case my work is cut short, which is by no means improb- able, I submit the manuscript of what is written to the dis- cretion of competent judges. If only a little is done, it will, of course, be suppressed, as by the judgment of Providence. If it is carried far enough towards completion to show the general argument, or to give indications of a general treat- ment that would probably have a degree of freshness and practical benefit, that may be a judgment of Providence fa- voring its preservation. At this point I pass directly on to my work, proposing no analysis or plan, but simply to let it plan itself, as the rivers do when they mark their courses by their own movement. I prefer to have my liberty, and especially not to be worried, if I sometimes fall into that which is the old man's liberty, better called his infirmity, of repeating what he has said be- 54:8 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. fore. At present, I liope I may not do it, but I am going on adventure somewhat, and may pass into regions of mental ob- livion before I know it. The following letters contain further allusions to the work begun at this evening hour of his life : — To Dr. Bartol. Hartford, January 27, 1875. My dear Feiend, — I had almost forgotten the book, but not you. It is really good to hear you speak once more. You do not feel sure that I am going to meet your first im- pressions, or that I am going to be a defender of orthodoxy. I really do not care one fig whether I am or not, if only I can do something for the truth. I think I know exactly where you are, and how you got there, and am tolerably sure that I shall never be there my- self,— only we shall not be so far apart that we cannot span the distance by dear recollections and embraces of love. I am just setting myself to a book on the Holy Spirit and Inspiration, which I have scarce a hope of living to finish. I should like to talk with you about it, but we shall have time to talk it over hereafter. Give my best love to Mrs. B. and the daughter. I remem- ber a great many things in which they have a part. I do not mean this for a farewell, but very likely it is. Yours, in great love, Hoeace Bushnell. The next letter is in answer to one received from Dr. George Bacon, enclosing some most interesting extracts from Livingstone's " Last Journals " (chapter xxii.), on the Atone- ment of Christ, and the Providence of God as both compre- hensive and minutely vigilant : — Hartford, February 21, 1875. My deae Feiend, — Your letter is about the only warm thing I have had in my hand for weeks, and of course I am glad to feel the touch of it; and the gale you waft on me from Africa is none the less comforting, that it has a breath. A SEVERE ILLNESS. 549 of tliat warm region in it. Could it ever have come from Scotland ? It is beautiful to see what treasures God will open to minds that are deep enough in sacrifice and loss to have the appetite waked up towards them. The dear great hero ! — why, he has worlds-full of high theology with hiin, and a grand theo- logic endowment besides. I do not wonder at the enjoyment you find in the ending-off story of his career. I shall look for your review, and probably for the book besides. I spent the first half of the winter in preparing my volume on the Sacrifice for the press, whenever it may be wanted,* writing out some notes to be added as a kind of appendix. In these notes I have restated a few points, I think, to ad- vantage. Since this was done, I have been, if you will believe it, starting a new book on " The Inspirations." My object is to make out a full statement of all the Holy Spirit has done, or is doing, in character, and story, and Scripture, resolving all by one method. I have made more progress than I expected, but I do not really expect to live the labor through. I undertake it, in fact, to get a little sense of being from it. I wish I could talk the matter over with you at some of the points. I have lost ground steadily, but very gently, since I saw you. My breath is more and more restricted. It gives me great satisfaction to see that 3'ou bear the har- ness. Watch your limits, and keep a hold-back in the har- ness. Give my special regards to Mrs. B. Yours most truly, Hoeace Busunell. The work begun amidst such uncertainties was carried on- ward through several chapters. Then the thread broke off in the middle of a sentence, never to be taken up again. Early in the spring he became very ill, but was as unperturbed by the close approach of death as he had been by its distant shadow. Two or three years before, he had replied to an * In reference to a proposed new edition. 550 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. iuquiry about liis health, — " Ahnost through;" and to the further question, " But how do you feel about it, Doctor?" " I can hardly tell ; but as for this dying, about which we have always been so much exercised, I liave come to think there isn't much to it." Now, when it seemed at hand, he was of like mind. In the quiet watches of the night, his wife asked him how death looked to him. " Yery much like ofoins into another room," was the answer. When, with a slight transposition of its words, this text was repeated to him, — " The good, and perfect, and acceptable will of God," he replied, " Yes, and accejptedP When his mind wandered in the heat of fever, its grand orderliness and the obedient habit of his soul were only the more revealed. His very wanderings had an instinctive rea- sonableness, and were all towards God. He had travelled that way too long to lose it in any mist of the brain. He was responsive to all that was done for him, often in his own racy, peculiar manner of speech. He said to his wife on one occasion, when she was trying to do something for his com- fort,— " It's a pretty delicate matter to nurse an old fellow who doesn't know whether he wants to get well or not." One day a friend said to him, " You must have a great deal of patience to lie l^ere so long." " Well," was the reply, " I've a good deal of weakness to support it." During this illness, he developed a new taste for flowers, gazing at them as if rapt with tlieir beauty. " Why, father," said one of his children, "you never used to be so fond of flowers." " My child, I hadn't time," he replied. To a simi- lar remark, that he "seemed to be taking a new interest in flowers," he answered, playfully, — "No, that isn't it ; they are taking a new interest in me. That rose, now, has been star- ing at me for an hour, as if it never saw a man before. I wonder what it thinks of me !" At another time, looking earnestly at some exquisite rose-buds, he exclaimed, — " What a remarkable prophecy of beauty to be born !" Finally, the life-power in him prevailed, and he began very slowly to come back to the world he had thought to leave forever. A friend said to him at this time, — " What do you INCIDENTS OF HIS ILLNESS. 551 do with yourself? do you think?" "No," with a shake of the head, "I don't do that, — I don't like it; it costs too much ; I say, The Lord reigns /" As he began to recover, he wanted some sense of contact with the outer world. He liked to keep near him the cane made by himself, and so long the companion of his walks. Grasping that, he seemed to grasp life once more. But bet- ter than all was some human contact from without. After a visit from a young friend, whom he called " one of his sons," and in whose vigorous presence he felt the pulse of healthful life, he exclaimed, "It's a gospel to see that fellow, so hearty and outspoken. I don't know another such man." He was told that a poor colored man had been to the door to inquire after him, and the remark was added, — " It is good to have friends among Christ's poor." " Yes," he said, put- ting it in his strong way; "you may have all the rest this side heaven, — give me those." And when he heard that a poor woman, whom he had befriended, and some other hum- ble friends were praying for him, he said, — "I don't know but I am kept alive by the pra3^ers of these people." A friend who was passing through town, and had a short interview with him, has since written: — "I never shall for- get the last time I saw him, when he w\as still very ill, on the very edge of the other world, — it seemed to me, already in that w^orld. What impressed me profoundly w\as, that while the characteristics of his personality were as strong as ever in this life, he was so spiritualized as to seem belonging already to another life, to be the one of the ' invisible com- pany' permitted to be visible to us. And I remember say- ing that if I doubted a future existence, seeing him then would remove such doubts. How real the other world seem- ed to me ! how near and pleasant it became, as I sat by his bedside and looked upon his sweet and saintly presence ! Yet, with all this, there was no word said by him of the future, except a brief message of love and farewell." As the summer advanced, he was able to drive out and to walk a little. He spent hours on his beloved Park, sitting under some tree, or on some great block of stone at the suni- 36 552 LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. mit of the liill^ where he could watch the building of the State Capitol, in which ho took great interest. He received with a gentle cordiality the friends who came to greet him, flaming up sometimes into his old fire and intensity. But generally his mind' was very quiet, and withdrawn into its own peaceful recesses, not having the impulse or force to reach the surface easily. It was a pleasant summer to him ; and to those who were much with him, it was a look into heaven. In the cooler weather of the autumn he was able to be at church again. This was a great pleasure to him. Lingering after the service, one Sunday, he said, very emphatically, to Dr. Burton, — " I do love to go to church !" He sat in a chair in front, that he might the more easily hear the service. In this way his face was half turned towards the congregation, some of whom found their eyes irresistibly attracted to it, and resting on it as on something almost sacred. One of them said that, at such times, these quaint lines always came to mind : — " His stainless earthy shell Was w orn so pure and thin, That through the callow angel showed, Half-hatched, that stirred within." He was much interested this autumn in a proposed plan for a complete new edition of his works, as Avill be seen from the three following letters to Dr. George Bacon, who had kindly offered his assistance in carrying forward the arrange- ments. The last of these letters shows for what reasons the plan was relinquished, never to be resumed during his lifetime. To Dr. George Bacon. Hartford, September 27, 1875. My dear Fkiend, — Your letter the other day started me off on a question or two that has delayed the answer; par- ticularly one that you name, — "What is to be done about " God in Christ," " Christ in Theology," etc. % I have been looking over the first of the two, and have made up my mind that it must be included. For it is the set-off, so to speak, of all LETTER ABOUT HIS WORKS, 553 that I liave done, tlie manifesto ; " Christ in Theology," has no such consequence, being only the answer I made to my accusers. This leaves only the question of publishing now the amend- ed edition of "Vicarious Sacrifice." I wish I were not haunt- ed by doubts in regard to the question, whether to publish the old volume as it was, and the new as it is, — two separate volumes. . , . Hartford, November 2, 1875. My deak Fkiend, — On the whole, I have concluded to have no farther proceeding in the matter even of the one book that you kindly undertook to set forward. I prefer to have nothing farther done. The plan they suggest of making this last volume the first of the complete series is particularly not pleasant. I have a decided aversion to setting first what corrects a good many things in my previous issues. The only way endurable is to put matters historically, and let the free movement be always correcting itself; the riper, that which is more green or in- sufficiently grown. Probably this means a good deal more to me than it would to most ; for I have always been trying to mend. I feel this, too, the more pungently, that I am go- ing to want my two volumes, " God in Christ " and " Christ in Theology," in the first places, jnst because, though green, they give my points of departure for all that comes after. I have been looking them over, and find them to contain a great deal of my best matter, as well as that which is the reason of all that comes after. With greater thanks to you than I can express, and with best regards to Mrs. B., I am yours, HOEACE BuSHNELL. Hartford, November 17, 1875. My deae Beothee, — I am wishing to hear how you are getting on, not a little concerned lest I may have been a part of the cause of your difficulty. I am very sorry that I allow- ed myself an}" such liberty as can possibly have made room 5o-l LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL, for this concern. I was startled by your letter, and instantly took myself out of your hands, without standing even for the decency of consultation, resolved to stop any further pretext of damage from me. If you will not be incommoded by the request of a few lines from you, telling me how you are, and what the phy- sician says of you, I shall be much obliged. One thing is now more than ever clear, viz., that you will have to give up all the extras, and sail your boat closer in to the shore. I hope it will not turn out that you have received any fatal injury. Would that I were in a case to offer you some little help, but I am now so weak that any overdoing of talk, however pleasant, brings on its penalty. I do not exactly make up my mind that I shall be through before the spring, — there is no use in such a conclusion ; the better way and more Christian is, I think, to put it down, that when the time comes it will come. Besides, there is a little volunteer weakness in the look, when a man begins to chant his death- song years before the time. If I could have everything as I wish, I would make sure only of a more and more com- plete fitness for the call, come when it may. And this is what I am now endeavoring, I hope with some effect. I do nothing but simply talk with God, taking small draughts, but oh, how strengthening and sweet ! from the Good Word, singing a song of praise witliout sound, and letting go very much even the family affairs. Sometimes, in a quiet, soft air, I creep out a short way, and return with a mind part- ly ventilated and a body physically refreshed. Sometimes a friend coming in tries to entertain me and I to be en- tertained. I do a great deal of cougliing, and I repair the damages by a great deal of sleep, which I mean to have my rest with God, for that is the main element now. By all which, you see that I am narrowing in more or less per- ceptibly. I none the less hope to hear that you are mending and taking up the stitches dropped. Tell me so, if you can. Yours ever, Horace Bushnell. LETTER OF THANKS. 555 To Mrs. E. C. Apthorp. Hartford, November 15, 1875. My deak Mother, — I want to thank you for the beautiful birds, or rather flock of birds, by which you have undertaken to feed me, even as the Lord brought up quails to cover the camp at even and keep his hungry people quiet. However, I do not suppose that you thought me to be quite as restive and ill-tempered as they ; for you know yourself, by your own experience, that we may fall under encumbrances of years and manifold iniirmity, without any loss of patience or disturb- ance of the state of comfort. You and I can journey on through our desert, I think, without any special fomentations of delicacy or delectations to keep us in peace. Still, it is none the less welcome that we have friends that show us their care of us, by the reminders of their love, the tokens that signify the tenderness of their zeal to make us liappy, when plainly enough they perceive that we are losing out and leaving behind many of the pleasures that are no longer able to yield us satisfaction. I speak in this manner for us both, but not as forgetting that there are twenty years of distance between us, and perhaps more. And yet we are so nearly of the same age, wlien measured by our decay and dilapidations, that I commonly assume our correspondence in the sense of loss and the steady nearing of our departure. We cannot hold on a great deal longer, as we perfectly know. I hope we are both ready for the change, and can rest our souls on ■ God, only asking that we may bide our time. I see nothing in it that Christ does not allow us to meet in all sweetness of confidence. And when his call arrives, what can be more welcome than to drop our long-worn, nearly worn-out days, and take a fresh beginning ? Oh that beginning \ How much it signifies to us, that it cannot signify to those early in life ! Nothing of expectation to them, it is a thing of how great expectation to us ! H it should put us in a hurry, or a ten- dency to it, I do not see that we should be much in fault. Is there not a sense, too, in which we are called to be looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of the Lord ? Yours evermore, Horace Bushnell. 556 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. This little note and its answer will easily explain them- selves : — Deak Geandpapa, — I am coming over on Saturday, and I hope that I shall see all of yon, and I hope that you will come out on Thanksgiving and join us in the fun, and have a piece of pie, and play snap-dragon, and stay as long as you can ; and we would be very glad if you would stay until Christmas. Yours truly, Chaeley. Hartford, November 24, 1875. Deah Chaeley, — It is a very nice thing to get letter No. 1, and I thank you most heartily for it. Let it be fol- lowed by No. 2, and as many others as may be. I rejoice to see that you are coming on so well in writing. As to the "j)ie," and the "snap-dragon," and the "fun" generally, you know that I am getting to be an old man, and am less capable of frisking and rollicking in such kind of pleasures, but I can enjoy them even the more when I see the young folks enjoy them. But I shall have to keep my Thanksgiving, for the same reason, on this side of the river, where it will be a good part of my pleasure to know that God has given me so many dear grandchildren, who will be trying to make a bright Thanks- giving, and will somehow find a way to do it. • Still, let us see you on Saturday, as you promise, and we will try to go as far in with you as we can. Perhaps we shall be able to get our old, clumsy mood brushed up into a frisky one, and find how to play a little with you. Give my dearest love to your father and mother, and just as dear to the other children, the sister and brothers. God bless you in a lively time ! Your loving grandfather, Hoeace Bushnell. To the Rev. William Adams, D.D. Hartford, November 24, 1875. My deae Classmate and Brother, — How far off are years of silence and virtual non-intercourse from proving the fact LETTER TO A FOKMER CLASSMATE. 557 of indifference or oblivion ! A letter passing conies with a shock, and it is as if the seeming dead relation sprung up in a mutual discovery of life. And the surprise is only the more welcome that the life, not really gone out, is simply waked into consciousness and audible self-assertion. Yester- day morning, at breakfast, I as little expected a letter from my old class-brother, Adams, as I did from Homer, and Caesar, and other college acquaintances. The more truly I thank you for this volunteer remembrance. My heart springs uj) to it, and words throng to me asking leave to answer. The truth is, that you were not as far off as you seemed. I had been watching for you in the silent years, noting your promotions following and to follow, and had so been freshing more and more, and consecrating "by a more fixed valuation, the interest I began to feel in you and claim as my property, so many yeai's ago. You were not gone out, or gone by, in the fresh Aniens I had been recording. Have you never observed, that while reminders are need- ed even to hold a man back from utter oblivion, who never gets capacity to be more to you than a dot or full period, a man who grows large in his honors and public successes quickens more and more estimation, and is writing out, as it were, his record of honor and love in our hearts? To have simply known a good, great man, though fifty years ago, even if we have not seen him since that time, is to feel blessed in him. These thoughts I write simply to ex- press my thanks for your letter, and tell you the happiness it gives me. Well, my honored brother, you and I are getting far on in our journey. What is done is done, what remains to be done by me is next to nothing. When they ask me in the street, "How is your health to-day?" my very common answer is that I have no health. If I go into the street in a little more hopeful mood, thinking that I am now going, perhaps, to un- dertake iJiat work, I am commonly cured of it before another day. No, I give u]3 my projects and my subjects, and gather myself in to get my last lessons from God. And to this I am bending with great hopefulness and refreshment. Is he not 558 LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. with me? Am not I with him? I do verily think so. The last winter I was near going, and carried my flag of expecta- tion a long time in my hand, but I came back as from the dead, both to myself and others. My story was that St. Peter met me at the gate and sent me back to get ready. Finding nothing else to do, I yet have not found that I was altogether unready. God help us both to be completely ready, and to meet on the other shore as old friends, not ashamed to be accepted. Yours evermore, Hoeace Bushnell. To Mr. Thomas Winship. Hartford, December, 1875. My dear Bkother,— I am glad to get your letter, partly because it shows to me that you are well enough to write, and partly because it offers a chance to converse without talking. I have been about and about calling on you for a long time, but feel so prostrate in strength, that I shrink from trying to understand enough from the voice to keep anything in life, and so let the time slip on, and my disincli- nation, too, slip by. In fact, there seems to be a great deal more in the old remembrances of times and communions gone by, than there could be in any tug of mutual under- standing and communication now. No two things appear to be much wider asunder than the labor of a strained, half-sig- nificant talk, and the abounding, almost bounding liberty of a full, free soul-flow, such as we have known in other times. How good and blessed will the day be when we shall have tongues, and voices, and ears again ! Oh, what a liberty of the saints will it be, when the Word that was in the begin- ning with God pours out free expression again, and runs through all the emancipated throngs of the glorified, quick- ening their intelligences and moving their glorious impulse in full flood, — no clogs, no suppressions, no scant apprehen- sions, knowing all as they are known ! I perceive by your letter that you seem to be nearing the land of promise, and in this I rejoice with you. It is good to LAST LETTERS. 559 look over, and claim our inheritance, and get naturalized in feeling beforehand. I have known you many years, and it is a most pleasant thing that I can have no doubt of you. I tliink you can have no doubt of yourself. If I, too, am making no presumptuous mistake, we shall know each other again after a very short time, and I shall have a chance of doing what has long been the expected privilege of my heart, that is, to make you due acknowledgment for the help you have given me, and the strength you have added to my w^eakness in former days. You have been faithful for me and to me, and I then shall be able to say, with fuller voice than now, " Let God be thanked that he gave me a faithful man." What other gift more precious does God ever bestow ? Yours, with great affection, Hoeace Bushnell. During his severe illness in the previous spring, be had re- ceived the following letter, to which the next is his reply, written on the last day of the year : — Boston, April 8,1875. My dear Fkiend, — I hear of your increased illness. Ac- cept my persuasion of your everlasting life and health. You and I believe in the same Being and Destiny. Should it be appointed for you to take passage first, take my love on board the wondrous vessel you sail in ; and send such token, as you may, back to my soul, of your blessed making port. From one to whom your Inmost is dear. C. A. Baetol. Hartford, December 31, 1875. My dear Friend, — Your very dear letter, which came to me last spring as a waft of fresh life, when I was just climb- ing up out of the river, has not been answered yet. Had it been less valued, it would have been answered sooner. But I have waited to be myself again ; for just to put words togeth- er in the clumsy conjunctions of faculty benumbed, brushing off the dew of old remembrance in words that I would like to answer fitly, is no comfort to me or courtesy to them. 560 LIFE OF IIOKACE BUSHNELL. For the first six months I made only the slowest possible improvement ; but since that time I seem to have been los- ing ground rather, till now it begins to be clear that your let- ter never will be answered, unless it should be true, in a sense not intended, that I am now the " half-way over ;" for it re- ally seems to me that a full half my faculty, — the better and more capable, — is somehow escaped, and that only the duller and more wooden part remains. However this may be, my boat swings drowsily, and I am no way disturbed or put to the strain by what is before me. Is it that I am believing less than I did, or more ? Is it that I have found a way in behind the visions, where the Word of God is, and seeing all in him, hold everything easy and quiet? Well, my dear brother, I will only say, God bless 3^ou, and farewell. We shall touch bottom here shortly, and that, I hope, in righteousness. With great regard that cannot die, your brother, Horace Bushnell. President Porter, in the Memoinal Sermon, speaks of a last interview with him, at the close of the year, and of the impression left by it : — "In one of the last days of the last year, I spent two or three hours with him in what I believed would be a farewell visit. He was cheerful in spirits and buoyant in humor. He talked of the present and the past with more than his usual spirit and freedom, but with an indescribable simplicity and loveliness. At parting he asked me to come again for anoth- er three hours as pleasant as these. I bade him good-bye, never to meet with him again in what we call the present life. I know not how or where we may meet again, nor with what surroundings : whether in scenes to which earth's scenery has no analogies, or in a place like that where his boyhood was spent — ' a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valley and hills.' But of this I am certain, that wherever and whatever that land may be, ' the glory of God will lighten it, and the Lamb will be the light thereof.' " GRADUAL DECLINE. 501 On the first day of tlie now year, one of the most exquisite of winter days, Dr. Bushnell drove, with his wife, ten miles eastward of the Connecticut, and s])ent a week with his son and daugliter, and among his grandchildren. After his re- turn to Hartford, he was able, till the end of the month, to drive in pleasant weather and to take a walk now and then. Gradually he sank into an illness much like that of the year before, — so much so, that the two illnesses are almost one in memory. Only he was, if anything, more hidden away in the secret of God's presence than before. One day, his wife read to him the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of the Gospel according to St. John, beginning, " Let not your heart be troubled," and containing our Lord's farewell con- versation with his disciples; and when the reading was end- ed, he said, as if in the very presence of that wondrous scene, " What a soft and sweet infolding of all highest things — what a soft and sweet infolding of all highest things !" The other world drew him more and more surely to itself, but he did not cease to love this dear earth where he had so long dwelt, its things of beauty, its sweet human relation- ships. One afternoon, after he had lain almost unconscious for some time, he was told that a picture held up before him had been painted for him by one of his daughters. Im- jnediately he was full of interest in it, turned it this way and that with trembling hand, to get the best light, mak- ing his comments on it in a mingling of fatherly gratifica- tion and playful criticism. Shortly after, he held, in the same way, a magnificent spray of rose-colored azalea which had been sent him, gazing at it with an admiring wonder, as if it were some heavenly fiower, and murmuring, "Beau- tiful! beautiful!" A gentle but undying humor flickered to the last through the few words he was able to say. A refreshing hour of sleep was "a practical little nap;" some successful ministering to his needs was " a productive comfort." As the days went by without marked change, he said to one of his children, — " It is wonderful to me how I hesitate, and draw out, and spin along;" and to a friend coming into his room after some 562 ' LIFE OF HORACE BUSHNELL. hours' absence, he stretched out liis hand, with a smile, say- ing,— " Soul and body together !" One night, waking suddenl}^ from sleep, he exclaimed, " Oh, God is a wonderful Being !" And wdien his daugh- ter, sitting by his side, replied, " Yes ; is he with you ?" he an- swered, slowly, " Yes, in a certain sense he is with me", and" — then came a pause — "and I have no doubt he is with me in a sense which I do not imagine. I account it one of the greatest felicities to have a nature capable of such changes," — meaning, probably, such movements of God in it. Soon after this he said, still more slowly, and with pauses intermin- gled, for he was very weak, — " Well, now, we are all going home together; and I say, the Lord be with you — and in grace — and peace — and love — and that is the way I have come along home." It was his dying benediction, spoken out of the almost sleep and exhaustion of his mind. On the 15th of February, he received a message from the Common Council of Hartford, announcing to him the pas- sage by them, on the previous evening, of the following Res- olntion to call the Park by his name : — '■'■Whereas, The park laid out by the city iu 1854 has not received any name ; "And whereas, The. plan of using the land lying between Elm Street and the Little River for a public park, owes its origin and successful ex- ecution, in a large degree, to the foresight, to the able and earnest advo- cacy, and the influence, freely and with generous persistence exerted in public, in private, and through the press, of Horace Bushnell ; "And whereas, It is wise and fitting that the name of a citizen standing foremost among those who have achieved enduring fame in the field of intellectual effort should be associated with the public works of the city, in which his manhood's life has been spent, to which he has been devot- edly attached, and for whose adornment, improvement, and general good he has been ever ready to give his time, his influence, and the riches of his genius; " Now, there/ore, in recognition of a reputation in whose honors the city of his adoption shares, and of labors for the public good whose re- sults will add to the happiness and welfore of every citizen ; " Resolved, That the public park now commonly called ' The Park ' be and hereby is named ' Bushnell Park.' " LAST IIOUKS. 563 When this announcement readied him, it was his L^st day of anything like conscious life ; but he seemed to follow, witli sympathy at least, the reading of those words so honorable to him and to his fellow-citizens. When he was told that the poor Irishman w^ho brought the message had said, " This is how we all wanted it to be," his face lighted up with a beau- tiful smile, as it did again when his physician said to him, " Your park. Doctor ;" and he repeated, as if to himself, " My park !" No monument that the city of his affections might have reared to his memory could have so fitly commemorated his services, or so perfectly satisfied his feeling. It was singular- ly fitting, also, that this tribute should have reached him at that closing hour, connecting him to the last with the world to whose welfare he had so largely devoted his life. It was the voice of his fellow-men saying, " Well done, thou good and faithful servant." But now he was to hear those words spoken by Him who had been the supreme object of his life, and who alone can speak them as one having authority, or add to them that glo- rious confirmation, — " Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Early in the morning of the ITth of February, 1876, while the stars w^ere still shining in the clear and silent heaven, Horace Bushnell passed away to that world, on whose borders he had so long dwelt. The sermon delivered at his funeral in the Pai-k Church, in presence of a great throng of his old j)eople and friends, by his successor, the Rev. Dr. Burton, contained this fresh and final interpretation of his mind and character : — " Dr. Bushneirs mind was one of the rarest. What it was in his books, that it was in private, with certain very piquant 564: LIFE OF HORACE BUSIINELL. and iiiiforgetable personal flavors added. It was original al- most beyond precedent, in the sense that every thought put forth from it was a pure outgo from its own self. His pow- er to push his mind tlirough hours and hours of continuous Labor had diminished, of course ; but wliensoever it did stir, it was the same teeming and amazing thing as in his prime. It was imaginative, too, even magnificently so at times ; in- deed, it was not possible for him to speak ten sentences on any subject without bringing this great faculty of his into the field, with its illuminations, and ornamentations, and out- springs of intuition ; and all readers of his books know how all sorts of felicitous analogies were wont to flock in for the illustration of his themes. It was characteristic of his mind, moreover, that it was independent, courageous always, inci- sive, imperative, not cumbered by excessive and undigested reading, almost irreverent at times towards mere authority, too little considerate of the wisdom of the past, but truth- loving (intensely so), debative, soldierly, massive, mobile, im- pressi^ble to every touch as the sea to the swaying of the winds, — a mind so royal in many w^ays as to waken a never- failing and profound admiration in those who knew him best and were well adjusted to him. . . . " Those of us who w^ere personally and closely acquainted with this man will very sadly miss him. His humor; the fine insistence of his voice ; the sinew, pith, and splendor of his diction, which never failed him even in his most extem- poraneous utterances ; his rich, inspired prejudices and frank contempt for several things on earth ; his very quotable, sen- tentious sayings, some last one of which was always likely to be circulating in this community ; his sharp outlook continu- ally upon the moving, great w^orld ; his beautiful ability to revise his own opinions, so that, meeting him any day, you were not unlikely to be told by him of some more felicitous, and comprehensive, and unanswerable statement of some old point of truth which he had just worked out ; his prayers, so rich and fresh with thought, so direct, true, and sweet in feel- ing ; the power of various kinds, by which in his day he made the pulpit of the North Church to be one of the thrones of EXTRACTS FROM FUNERAL SERMON. 565 the world; his perfectly undaunted outlook into eternity; his high-hearted fight with disccise and death for the last ten years; the youthfulncss which beat irrepressible under his old age ; his wiry form, determined and energetic to the last ; his face so softened by years and the chastisement of disease, and the inworking of God in his ripening soul, — 3'es, all that went to make Horace Bushnell, as he apjDcared among men and played off his magnetisms upon them, some of us will affectionately, and sorrowfully, and also joyfully remember, until we meet him again in God's great other world. . . . " What a mind his must be to enter heaven, and start out upon its broad-winged ranges, its meditations and discoveries, its transfigurations of thought and feeling, its eternal enkin- dlings of joy as the mysteries of redemption unfold ! I look forward with immense expectation to a meeting again with this man in his resurrection life. I want to see Horace Bush- nell in his glorified, immortal body, and note the movements of that mighty genius and that manful and most Christian soul when thus clothed upon and unhindered. " Meanwhile, and until then, farewell, O master in Israel, O man beloved ! God give thee light on thy dark questions now ! God give thee rest from thy tired body ! God bring us to thee when the eternal morning breaks !" NOTE. In the yccar 1879, a mural tablet was set upon the wall of the Park Church, by some of Dr. Bushnell's parishioners and friends, as a memorial of him, and a tribute of their aflfection. It contains a marble rilievo of his head and face, and is inscribed to him in these words : — " IN MEMORY OF HIS GREAT GENIUS, HIS GREAT CHARACTER, AND HIS GREAT SERVICES TO MANKIND." He is buried in what is known as " the old North Burying-ground " — a quiet, simple place, where his two infant children and many of his old friends were already buried ; and there he chose to be laid. His grave is marked by a granite monument, erected by his wife, and bearing this inscription : — HORACE BUSHNELL. 1802-1876. INDEX. Adams, Rev. Dr. William, letter to, 556. Addresses, articles, and sermons of Dr. Bushnell mentioned, 17, 82, 85, 88, 93, 102, 103, 107, 109, 163, 173, 174, 183, 184, 192, 196, 198, 200, 202, 229, 248, 249, 257, 263, 279, 287, 288, 298, 312, 323, 345, 383, 403, 406, 409, 410, 411, 413, 423, 474, 475, 481, 482, 485, 490, 491,495,501,505,513. Adirondacks, vacation in the, 497-501. Afghan, present of an, 346. "Age of Homespun," the, address on, 10, 248. " Agriculture at the East," 174. " Aids to Reflection," reading the, 208, 209. All)inola, Mr., and his Italian Society, 106. Alps, travelling in the, 130-137. "Altar Form," 198. " American Politics," 93. Andover, addresses at, 88, 200. xingelico, Fra, 151. Angelo, Michael, 155, 156. Antwerp, cathedral at, 124. Apples, measuring out the, 10. Apthorp, Mrs. E. C, letters to, 85, 118, 555 ; mention of, 72, 527. Argument for Christian nurture, 180. Art, 150-153. Association of Fairfield West, 234, 237, 258, 340. Association, General, of Connecticut, 234, 258, 305, 340. Association, General, of Massachusetts, 179. Association, Ilartford Central, 225, 234, 306, 307. Association, Xorth, of Hartford County, 179. Afla7itic, the wreck of the steamship, 177. Atonement, discourse on the, 196-198; subject of, 218, 236, 246, 336, 339, 488, 532, 342. B. Bacon, Rev. Dr. Leonard, quoted, 182, 201, 245 ; resolution at the Waterbury meeting, by, 306. Bacon, Rev. Dr. George, letters to, 492, 528, 538, 539, 548, 552, 553 ; assist- ance of, 530. Bambino in Italy, the, 158. Bangor Theological Seminary, 208, 215. Bantam, Conn., village of, 4. " Barbarism the first danger," sermon on, 184. Bartol, Rev. Dr., recollections of, 184 ; letter from, 559. Bartol, Rev. Dr., letters to, 184, 199, 211, 212, 213, 217, 219, 222, 227, 230, 246, 247, 249, 250, 257, 262, 303, 3u4, 324, 362, 363, 365, 414, 418, 419, 424, 434, 479, 525, 548, 559. Bear, meeting a, 387, 389. Beard, Mr. and Mrs., 372, 374, 396. Beecher, Dr., visit from, 225 ; remark on, 86. Beecher, Rev. Edward, mentioned, 222. 570 INDEX. Beecher, Eev. H. "W., hearing, 413. Berne, Switzerland, city of, 133. Bible, the, 205, 443. Bible-class, takes charge of a, 65. Big trees of California, 37*7. Birth, time and place of, 3. " Body and Form," by Dr. Bartol, 304. " Bones, his, are full of the sin of his youth," sermon on, 505. Books published by Dr. Bushnell, ITS, 211-214, 243, 413, 419, 439, 480, 501, 503, 526, 537. Books, reading of, 48, 49, 61, 186, 191, 208, 245, 295, 508. Borromeo, St. Charles, 148. Brace, Charles L., remarks by, 79, 110. Bread-Loaf Inn, 520, 530. Bridging Asylum Street, Hartford, plans for, 319. Bristol, England, 116. Buchanan, 447 ; his fast, 443. Building a church, suggestions for, 126, 381,408. Building eras in religion, 495. Buildings in California, 376. Bunker Hill Celebration, 108. Bimyan, John, mention of, 207, 322, 502. Burgess, Bishop, letter from, 194. Burgess, Daniel, family of, 73. Burkett, Ralph, letter to, 509. Burton, Rev. Dr., remarks by, 6, 505 ; ap- pointment of, 504 ; funeral address by, 563. Bushnell, Rev. George, remarks by, 8, 42. Bushnell, Rev. Dr. Horace; his birth and pedigree, 3 ; homestead, 4 ; parents, 4 ; family, 7 ; education, 9 ; visiting grand- parents in Vermont, 14 ; religious in- stincts, 15 ; mill work, 16 ; goes to Warren High School, 17 ; begins study of Latin, 17; sports, 18; ad- mitted to Yale College, 22 ; his grand- mother, 24 ; his mother, 8, 26 ; com- positions, 40, 46 ; graduating, 46 school-teaching, 47 ; religious doubts 37, 38, 50, 55, 58, 60; editorship, 51 studying law, 52, 55 ; tutorship, 53 religious revival, 55 ; conversion, 59 enters theological school, 62 ; licensed to preach, 65 ; first call, 66 ; ordina- tion, 70 ; marriage, 72 ; early preach- ing, 76-80 ; death of his second child, 85 ; birth of a son, 87 ; first heresy, 89 ; offer and declinature of presiden- cy of Middlebury College, 95, 97 ; de- gree of D.D. conferred, 98 ; son's death, 105 ; work for Protestant League, 106, 172; ill-heaUh, 112; journeying in Europe, 115; return home, 171 ; publication of "Christian Nurture," and subsequent controversy, 178-183; religious experience, 191 ; delivers the addresses published in the book " God in Christ," and pro- nounced heretical, 196-202, 212; his position under attack, 214-217 ; trial by his Association; 225; appears be- fore General Association at Litchfield, 234 ; publishes " Christ in Theology," 243 ; overtures to Dr. Hawes, 253 ; controversial action at meetings of General Association, 258, 305, 341 ; lectures on the supernatural, 260 ; rec- ollections of him by Dr. Bartol, 1 84 ; by Bishop Clark, 294 ; Western jour- ney, 267 ; review of his pastorate, 279 ; his work as a citizen, 312-321 ; corre- spondence with Dr. Hawes, 326 ; trav- elling in Cuba, 347 ; in California, 365 ; call to the presidency of College of, and work for the same, 384-389, 396- 405 ; return home, 406 ; publication of "Nature and Supernatural," 419; leaving Hartford, 423 ; in Minnesota, 427 ; at Clifton Springs, 439 ; as he was at home, 452 ; publication of books, 480, 501, 503, 526, 537 ; minis- try at large, 470 ; last sermon, 505 ; closing years, 515 ; death, 563. Business men, week-day sermon to, 410. c. C. C, or Criticus Criticorum, 224, 228. California, letters from, 336-402 ; Col- lege of, 384-389, 396-405 ; appeal for INDEX. 71 same, 403 ; climates of, 3';0, SYl, 389, 392 ; condition of, 383 ; herding in, 374 ; water in, 37G, 392 ; buildings in, 316; scenery of, 367, 371, 372, 373, 377, 380, 392 ; ministers of, 33G. Call to the North Church in Hartford, 66; to Middlebury College, 95; to College of California, 384. Calvinism, on, 25, 137, 139, 187. Cambridge Divinity School, address at, 196. Camp, Major II., letter concerning, 474. Capitol of Connecticut, working for the State, 506. Cardiug-machines, 5, 16, 17. Carlyle, on Sterling, extracts from, 255, 265. Castor and Pollux, horses of, 153. Cathedrals at Antwerp, 124; at Milan, 147; at Exeter and Bristol, 118; at Geneva, 139; at Rouen, 495 ; should be left unfinished, 136. Channing, Dr. Wm. E., mention of, 186, 195, 230. "Character of Jesus," publication of the, 439. Charleston, S. C, letter from, 361. Chesebrough, Rev. A. S., mention of, 223, 239 ; letters to, 224, 228, 232, 252, 261,324,326,345,408,538. Childhood, 6-16. Children, thoughts on training of, 178, 239, 300, 503; letters to, 91, 96, 104, 108, 139, 160, 188, 270, 356, 556 ; re- lations and feelings to his own, 76, 85, 89, 105, 150, 175, 177, 191, 352, 353, 452, et seq. Christ, thoughts and experiences of, 193, 197, 220, 323, 336, 339, 368, 394, 422, 435, 445, 478, 488, 520, 533, 534, 541. " Christ and His Salvation," 471, 481. " Christ in Theology," book on, 243-246. " Christ the Form of the Soul," sermon on, 192. "Christian Alliance," the, 107, 138, 172, 175. "Christian Nurture," book on, 178-183, 439. Christian Observatory, criticisms in the, 215,222. Christian Jieffisfcr, mention of the. 111, 250. Christian Spectator, article in the, 82. " Christian Trinity a practical Truth," an article published in the New Eng- lander, 345. Christian Union, letter to the, 540. Christianity, on, 200, 231, 247, 287, 301. Church in New Preston, struck by light- ning, 71. Church, North, in Hartford, settlement in, 67-70; conservatives in, 92, 281 ; deacons of, 69 ; gift made by, 425 ; letters to, 354, 367, 385, 393, 416; from, 415; relations to Dr. Bushnell, Chapter XIV. ; to other churches, 252 ; payment of debt, 293 ; parting from, 423 ; withdrawal from Consociation, 260, 285 ; pastors of, 439, 478, 485, 504; change to Park Church, 485, 491. Clark, Bishop, letter of reminiscences by, 294 ; mention of, 252, 263. Clifton Springs, New York, staying at, 439. Climates, of California, 370, 371; of Cuba, 353 ; of Minnesota, 433, 434. Clinton, California, site for college at, 397, 404. Closing years, by F. L. B., 515. Col de Balme, walk to the, 135. Coleman, Rev.'Dr., remarks by, 36. Coleridge's WTitiugs, reading, 208, 209, 499. Coliseum at Rome, the, 158. Colleague, appointment of a, 413, 415. College experiences, 35. Collins, A. M., letter to, 381 ; remark by, 413. Commemorative celebration at Yale Col- lege, 485. Common-schools, address for, 298. Communion, preparation for, 292. Como., Lake, 146. Compositions, youthful, 20, 40, 40. Comprehensiveness, 281. 572 INDEX. Comte, 493, oil. Concio ad Clerum, at Yale, delivery of, 198,201. Confessions of a Fair Saint, 523. Conformity in small things, 81. Congregatmialist, criticisms in the, 222. Conic sections, rebellion in college over, 39. Connecticut, speech for, 249. Conscience and knowledge, on, 519. Consociation, withdrawal from, 260, 285. Controversy, 214, 216, 255, 464. Conversion, on the subject of, 59. Corn-laws, repeal of the British, 165. Country, hopefulness for the, 4Y7. Courant, the Hartford, sermon in, 410. Coventry, England, visit to, 119. Creed, basis for a, 252; uses of a, 166, 1*73. " Crisis of the Church," sermon on, 77. Cromwell, Oliver, portrait of, 165. Cuba, letters from, 349-354. Czersky, 125. D. Daggett, Rev. Dr. 0. E., letter from, 105. Dam, building a solid stone, 22. Danbury, meeting of the General Asso- ciation at, 258. Davis, Andrew Jackson, mention of, 257. "Day of Roads," sermon on the, 177, 289. Day, Professor Henry, remarks on boy- hood by, 17. Deacon Seth Terry, letter from, 92. Deacons, remarks on, 492. "Dead," an oration on "Our obligations to the," 485. Death of infant daughter, 85 ; of son, 105 ; of Dr. Bushnell, 563. Death, feelings about, 550. Debates in college, 40 ; in boyhood, 19. Debt, dislike of, 74, 291, 293. Defective memory, 457. Detroit, letter from, 425. " Dignity of Human Nature sliown from its Ruins," sermon on, 363. Diman, Rev. J. Lewis, appointed as a colleague, 415 ; his refusal, 417. "Discourses on Christian nurture," 179. " Dissertation on Language," quotations from, 203. " Dissolving of Doubts," sermon on, 58. " Divinity of Christ," discourse on the, 198, 201. Doctor of Divinity, degree conferred, 98. " Dogma and Spirit," discourse on, 200. Dogmatic theology, thoughts on, 205, 218, 233, 244, 339, 494, 501, 502. Dolls, dislike to, 453. Durant, Henry, talking with, 56. Dutton, Rev. Dr., friendly letters from, 254 ; letter of consolation to, 483. " Duty not measured by our own abil- ity," sermon on, 77. E. E , Mrs., letters to, 346, 436. E , Miss, letter to, 494. Early life at home, 8-23. Early ministry, records of, 71, 79, 458, 472. East Windsor Seminary, 215, 235, 242. Edinburgh, Scotland, 123. Editorship of the Journal of Commerce, 51. Education, early, 9 ; a sermon on " New Education," 504. Edwards, Jonathan, references to, 275, 336. Egleston, Rev. N. H., remarks of, 320. Einsiedeln, Switzerland, 129. England, travel in, 117, 163. "Enthronement of the Lamb," sermon on, 505. Ericsson's caloric motor, 305. Escapades of freshmen, 53. Essays, first, in philosophy, 63. Europe, journey in, 115. Evangelical Alliance, 166, 173. Evanr/eJht, the, article in, 215, 221. Excursion with children to Bolton, 459. Exeter, England, remarks about, 118. INDEX. 57c Fairfield West Association, 234, 237, 243, 258, 2G0, 340. Faith, life of, reiiiavks upon the, 358, 361, 367,450,494. Family, of Dr. Bushiieirs parents, 4 ; prayers, 455, 525. " Fastidiousness in hearing the Word of God," referring to a sermon, 288. Fenelon's Avritings, impressed by read- ing, 191. Financial crash of 1857, 410. Finney, Rev. C. G., mentioned, 253, 267, 275. Fishing, fondness for, IS, 44, 239, 430, 461, 523, 526, 527. Flashes of wit, 513. Flogging, receives a, 7. Floi'ence, stay in, 149-153. Forgiveness, on the subject of, 518. "Forgiveness and Law," studies for, 518, 530, 542 ; publication of, 537. Formulas, indifference to, 218, 337, 490, 502. Fort Ripley, Minn., 269, 271. "Founders, the, great in their uncon- sciousness," address before the New England Society of New York, 229. Fragment of autobiography, a, 1. France, letters from, 160. Frankfort, adventures at, 127. French people, remarks upon the, 161. Frescoes by Sala, the artist, 149. Freshmen, escapades of, 53. Freyburg, Switzerland, 134. Funeral service at Dr. Bushnell's death, 563. " Future Life, our relations to Christ in," sermon on, 513. G-. Gage, Rev. W. L., remarks of, 255, 545. Galena, letters from, 268. Gaussen, Professor, 138. Garrison,William IL, reference to, 77, 78. General Association of Connecticut : meeting at Litchfield, 234 ; at Dan- bury, 258 ; at Waterbuiy, 305 ; at New Haven, 340. Geneva, Switzerland, visit to, 134. Genius, thoughts on, 41, 61. Gettysburg, battle of, 481. Giant, the, a mountain in the Adiron- dacks, 498. Gladden, Rev. Washington, installation of, 504. God, feelings about, 193, 277, 366, 375, 398, 445, 449, 510, 516, 517, 522, 523, 529, 560, 562. "God in Christ," remarks about the book, 207, 211-219, 544, 553. God's care, 1, 2, 90, 267, 345, 352, 382, 426,499. Goodwin, Rev. Henry M., letters to, 221, 234, 240, 248, 420. Government, sermon on moral founda- tions of, 474. Graduating at college, 46. Grandmother, sketch of his, 24 ; letter from, 15 ; visit to, 14. Grant, General, admiration for, 482. " Great Time-keeper," sermon on the, 109. Grindelwald, visit to, 131. Griswold, Rev. Mr., instruction in elocu- tion by, 66. " Growth of Law," address on, 107. " Growth, not Conquest, the true Method of Christian Progress," article pub- lished in the N^ew £»glandei\ 109. Guizot, M., listening to a speech from, 161. Gustavus Adolphus, the Society of, 138. H. Handwriting, remarks on, 437. Hanging up questions, 60, 444, 533. Harris, Mr., kindness of, 350. Hartford, settlement in ; work as a citi- zen for, 183, 312-321, 506; leaving, 423 ; return to, 449. Hartford Central Association, trial be- fore, 225 ; course of, 234, 306. INDEX. Hartford Xortli Consociation, withdrawal from, 260. Harvard, oration delivered at, 198. Hawes's, Dr., relations to Dr. Bushnell, 253 ; correspondence with, 326. Health, thoughts on, 484. Hedding, Bishop, the early story of, 25. Heidelberg, letter from, 127. Helmer, Rev. C. D., supplies Dr. Dush- nell's pulpit, 421. Herbert, Sidney, hearing a speech by, 167. Heresy, first broached, 89, 90 ; trial for publishing, 225, ct scq. Holy Spirit and his work, treatise on, 547 ; preaching on, 449. Home, early life at, 5. Home, feelings about his own, 88, 103, 168, 269, 431, 448 ; influence, 465. Homestead, the old, 4. Hopkins, Deacon, in the house of, 460. Hours at Home, publication of articles in, 490, 491, 495, 501. House of Commons, London, impressions of the, 164, 167. House, planning his, 72, 97. " Household Recollections," 452. Howard, Rev. Dr., criticism by, 541. Hudson, lecture in, 102. Humor, his characteristic of, 38, 186, 255,453,512,536,561. "Hunger of the Soul," sermon on the, 287. Huntington, Rev. Dr. F., 250, 251, 411. Hyde, Rev. James T., pastor pro ton. of the North Church, 394. Ideals, 391,400. Illness, incidents of an, 549. Incarnation, subject of the, 219. Independent, the, candid discussion in, 250. Industry, years of broken, 471. " Insight of Love," sermon on, 481. Inspiration, thoughts on, 339, 361, 390, 546, 547, 549. Installation of Rev. Mr. Gladden, 504 ; of Rev. Mr. Lacy, 383, 386 ; of Rev. Mr. Walsworth, 366. Inversnaid, stay at, 119. Italian scenery, 145, 146 ; sculpture, 152, 154. J. James, Rev. Dr., conversations with, 445, "446; criticism by, 420. Jeffersonian political philosophy, 474. Journal of Conmurce, editor of the, 51. Justice of the peace, his father a, 19. K. Kansas, interest in the affairs of, 382, 384,400,411. Kenil worth, impressions of, 118. King, Rev. Thomas Starr, mentioned, 482. Kirk, Rev. Edward N., letter from, 417. Knowledge and conscience, on, 519. Lake Como, 146; Lugano, 145; Lomond, 119; Katrine, 122; Minnetonka, 429 ; Waramaug, 5, 381, 460, 461, 478. Language, dissertation on, 202-207, 213 ; subject of, 65, 501, 502. Lasso, use of the, 374. Last sermon preached, 505. Later life, spirit of his, 517. Latin, commences the study of, 17. Law, studying, 52, 55. Letter to the Pope, publication of a, 168, 171. Letters of reminiscences by Bishop Clark, 294 ; by Rev. Dr. Bartol, 184. Letters from — Bartol, Rev. Dr. C. A., 559. Birmingham, England, 118. Boston, 221. Brandon, Yt., 95. Bristol, England, 116. Brockport, N. Y., 103. Burgess, Bishop, 194. INDEX. 575 Letters from — ]}yfiekl, 89. Cabotville, 110. California, 306. Charleston, S. C, 3G1. Cincinnati, 0., 275. Clifton Springs, X. Y., 439. Cuba, 349. Detroit, Mich., 425. Edenton, N. C, 113. Florence, Italy, 149. Galena, 111., 268. Geneva, Switzerland, 138. Hartford, 96, 99, 108, 175, 184, 188, 211, 217, 222, 227, 230, 240, 246, 257, 261, 303, 322, 345, 362, 408, 424, 471, 478, 479, 482, 492, 521, 525, 528, 535, 538, 548, 552. Heidelberg, 127. Hudson, 0., 102. Inversnaid, Scotland, 119. Italy, 145. London, England, 123, 163. Martinez, Cal., 385. Milan, 147. Milwaukee, 426. Mount Washington, 75. Nevada, Cal., 367. New Haven, Conn., 96. New Preston, 71. New York, 322, 347, 413. Niagara, 275. Norfolk, Conn., 540, 541. Norwich, Conn., 48. Paris, 160. Plymouth, Conn., 98. Porter, Dr. Noah, 241. Richmond, Va., 487. Eipton, Vt., 509, 521, 526, 528. Rome, 153. Sacramento, Cal., 399. San Francisco, 375, 384, 393, 398. San Jose Mission, Cal., 372, 380, 387, 396. Saratoga, N. Y., 87, 91, 266, 308. Savannah, Ga., 356. Sea, 115, 169, 348. Sharon Springs, N. Y., 310. Letters from — St. Anthony, Minn., 427. St. Louis, Mo., 273. Stoniugton, Conn., 238, 265. Switzerland, 127. Terry, Deacon Seth, 92. Warren, Conn., 483,488, 516. Washington, D. C, 112. Zurich, Switzerland, 127. Letters to — Adams, Rev. Dr. William, 556. Apthorp, Mrs. E. C, 85, 118, 555. Bacon, Rev. Dr. George, 492, 528, 538, 539, 548, 552, 553. Bartol, Rev. Dr., 184, 199, 211, 217, 219, 222, 227, 230, 246, 247, 249, 250, 257, 262, 303, 324, 362, 365, 414, 418, 424, 479, 525, 548, 559. Burkett, Ralph, 509. Camp, Major Henry, the biographer of, 474. Chesebrough, Rev. A. S., 224, 228, 232, 252, 261, 324, 326, 345, 538. Christian Union, 540. Collins, Mr. and Mrs. A. M., 381. Dutton,Rev. Dr., on his bereavement in the loss of his wife, 483. E , Mrs., 436. Hawes, Rev. Dr., 326, 331, 334. Mitchell, Donald G., 312. North Church in Hartford, 354, 367, 385,393,416. Van Rensselaer, Cortlandt, 48. AVilley, Rev. Samuel H., 384. Winship, Thomas, 360, 394, 450, 535, 558. Liberal, use of the epithet, 419. License to preach, receiving a, 65. " Life of Heaven," sermons on the, 105. "Life or the Lives," article in "Work and Play," first delivered, 103. Lincoln, Abraham, remarks about, 447, 448 ; esteem for, 473 ; eulogy on, 489. Litchfield, Conn., born at, 3 ; remarks about, 3, 4 ; address delivered at, 10, 248 ; meeting of the General Associ- tion at, 235. 576 INDEX. "Living Subjects," sermons on, 505. "Living to God iu Small Things," ser- mon on, 77. Livingstone, David, remarks about, 548. Loch Katrine, 122 ; Lomond, 119. London, letters from, 123, 163. " Loyalty," article on, 482. Lugano, remarks about, 145. M. Malan, Rev. Dr., 138. Manners in controversy, 254. Marcy, Mount, 498, 499. Marriage, Dr. Bushnell's, 72, Martinez, Cal., visiting, 38'i "Mary the Mother of Jesus,'^ sermon on, 505. Massachusetts Sabbath - School Society, 179. McEwen, Rev. Dr. Robert, remarks by 38, 54, 56. Mechanics, taste for, 17, 297, 305, 320. Melrose Abbey, Scotland, 123. Memorial sermon by President Porter at Yale quoted, 199, 560. Memorial service at the Park Church, 563. Memory, defective, 457. Merle, Rev. Dr., interviews with, 138. " Message from the Lord," brought by a colored man, 466. Metaphysics, on, 493. Middlebury College, the presidency of, 95, 97. Milan, impressions of, 147. Mines of New Almaden, 376 ; of Nevada, 369. Ministerial meetings, 511. Ministry, review of his, 279 ; at large, by Edwin P. Parker, 470. Minnesota, a year in, 426 ; climate of, 433, 434, " Miracles not Discontinued," 4G8. Missouri Compromise, 109. Mitchell, Donald G., letter to, 312. Monday Evening Club, 512. Monitorial system, 17. Mont Blanc, ways of seeing, 136, 137. " Moral Uses of Dark Things," book on the, 175, 501. Moravian way of training children, 503. Mother, sketch of his, 26 ; remarks upon his, 8, 9 ; death of his, 87. Motors, 305. Mount Washington, 75 ; Marcy, 499. Music, learning, 31 ; delight in, 41 ; ad- dress on religious, 263 ; appreciation of, 270, 455, 530. N. Napa City, Cal., 402. Napoleon Bonaparte, remarks about, 144, 149. National Preacher^ articles in, 109. " Natural History of the Yaguey Fami- ly," the, 356, 491. "Nature and the Supernatural," publi- cation of, 419. Neauder's " Planting and Training of the Churches," reading, 212. Necessity, the best of mothers, 432. Negro, as a heavenly messenger, 466. Nephew, letter to his, 240. Nevada, Cal., letter from, 367. New Almadeu quicksilver mines, 376. " New Education," address at Yale Col- lege on the, 504. New Englandei\2iViic\e& iu, 109, 173, 178, 182, 214, 261, 345, 413, 420, 428, 482. New Haven, General Association meet- ing at, 340. New Preston, residing at, 4 ; academy in, 17 ; vacations at, 461. New-School, 68, 69, 281. New York, letters from, 322, 347, 413. Niagara Falls, remarks about, 275 ; ser- mon on, 409. North Church in Hartford. See Church. " Northern Iron and the Steel," sermon on the, 325. o. O'Connell, hearing, iu House of Com- mons, 167. INDEX. 577 Old-school hearers, G8, 69, 281. Omicrou, articles signed, 213. Ordination, receiving, 70. Oregon dillleulty, regarding the, IGO, 163, 16G. Orthodo.xy, his, in various lights, 225, 227, 231, 245, 2i7, 338, 389, 414. " Our Gospel a Gift to the Imagination," sermon on, 501. " Our Obligations to the Dead," oration on, 485. " Our Relations to Christ in the Future Life," a sermon on, 513. Pacific Railroad, surveys for a, 405, 508. Paley, as a model for style, 41, 208. Panic of 1857, 410. Parents and family, 4, 7, 8. Paris, France, impressions of, 160. Park, History of the Hartford, 312 ; named Bushnell Park, 562. Parker, Rev. Dr. E. P., "Ministry at Large," written by, 470 ; manuscript submitted to, 535. Parker, Theodore, evening spent with, 108. "Parting Words," farewell sermon as pastor of the North Church in Hart- ford, 423. Pastorate, review of his, 279. Paternal tenderness, 465. Patriotism, 474, 477, 482, 486. Patton, Rev. Dr. William W., account of a conversation by, 207 ; relations with, 252. Phelps, Rev. Dr. Austin, remarks by, 339, 531. Phi Beta Kappa addresses, 85, 198. Pitti Gallery, Florence, 150. " Planting and Training of the Churches," reading Neander's, 212. Plays and Pastimes, 453. Politics, sermons on, 93, 109. Pope, a letter to the, 163, 171. Porter, Rev. Dr. Noah, 225, 241, 253, 344, Porter, President, of Yale College, 199, 255, 560. Prayers, his early, 15, 59, 79; in a strange land, 360 ; in the family, 455, 523 ; in church, 464, 473 ; on the mountain, 499; in the last 3'ears, 517, 524. " Preparatory Lecture," before Commun- ion Sunday, 292. Princeton Theological Seminary, 215, 242, 512. "Progress," article on, 501. " Prosperity our Duty," sermon entitled, 183. Protestant League, afterward called the Christian Alliance, 106. " Pulpit Talent," address on, 490. Puritan Fathers, tribute to the, 252. Puritan Recorder, criticisms of, 110, 181, 226,414,415. Putnam^s Maejazine, article in, 495. R. Raphael, criticism of works of, 156. Razor, stropping a, 36. Rebellion in college over conic sections, 39 ; great interest in the war of the, 473. Recollections, household, 452. Reformation in Germany, 125. " Religion, building eras in," 495. Religious experiences, 21, 55, 58, 191, 277, 445, 516. ReUgious Herald, the, 215, 223, 225. Religious influences of early life, 8, 11, 28. "Religious Music," address on, 42, 263. Resignation of pastorate, 423. Reunion, sermon of, 406. Revelation, address on, 88 ; thoughts on, 310, 358, 389 ; in his own experience, 516,522. Review of pastorate, 279. Revivals of religion, 55, 253, 412 ; sub- ject of, 81-84, 200, 282. Richmond, Va., letter from, 487. Ripton, letters from, 509, 521, 526, 528. 578 INDEX. Romanism, views of, IS, 106. Rome, visiting, 153. Ronge, 125. Russell, Lord John, description of, 167. s. Sabbath, boyish frolic on the, 19; in Scotland, 121. Sabbath-School Society of Massachusetts, 179. Sala, frescoes by, 149. Sampson, Joseph, friendship of, 347, 409, 471. San Francisco, letters from, 370. San Jose Mission, letters from, 372. San Pablo, visit to, 401. Savannah, letters from, 356. Scheideck, Switzerland, the, 130. School, at, 9, 17; teaching a, 47. Schools, common, address for, 298. Schools, Old and New, 68, 69, 281. Science, interest in, 41, 206, 509, 536. "Science and Religion," sermon on, 495. Sculpture, Italian, 152, 154. Second coming, subject of the, 99, 100. Sermons "for the New Life," 413; on " Living Subjects," 505 ; on " Christ and his Salvation," 471. Sharon Springs, letter from, 310. Shedd, Professor, hearing a sermon by, 414. Ships, seeing a fleet of, 117. Simplon, crossing the, 144. Sin, the fact of, 227, 425. Sketches of grandmother and mother, 24; of Major Camp, 476. Slavery, subject of, 78, 80, 248, 282, 411, 443, 474. Son, birth of his, 87 ; death of his, 105, 191. Spalding, Rev. George B., installation of, 485 ; resignation of, 504. St. Anthony, letters from, 427-437. St. Ouen, cathedral of, 495. St. Paul, preaching at, 433. St. Peter's, at Rome, visiting, 157. "Stability of Change," address on, 102. Starksborough, Vt., farm at, 24. Stockton Pass, California, 372. Stonington, Conn., letters from, 238, 265. Storm at sea, 170. Storrs, Rev. Dr., preaching for, 505. Study of the world at large, 509. Style, formation of his, 207-210. Supernatural, lectures on the, 257, 304, 345, 365. Surveying, taste for, 18, 320, 388, 404, 405,456,459,475. " Sustenance and Security," on, 520. Switzerland, impressions of, 127. Sympathy with young men, 290, 463. Tarbet, free church in, 121. " Taste and Fashion," article on, 109. Teaching, thoughts on, 427. Tennyson, extract from, 60. Terry, Deacon Seth, letter from, 92. Themes at college, 40, 46. Theological school at New Haven, 62, 215, 235. Thiers, M., description of, 161. Thunder-storm during service at church, 7L "Training for the Pulpit," article on, 490. Trees of California, 369, 371, 377. Trial before the Hartford Central Asso- ciation, 225. Trinity, subject of, 89, 204, 236, 335,418. Trivultius, monument of, 149. "True Wealth and Weal of Nations," address on the, 85. Tutorship in Yale College, 33, 53-62. Twichell, Rev. J. H., reminiscences by, 405, 498-501. u. " Unconscious Influence," sermon on, 163, 188, 288, 289. Unitarianism, 111, 180, 193, 202, 213, 214, 219,227, 231. Upham's works, reading of, 191. INDEX. 579 V. Vacations, while at college, 42 ; at New Preston (or Warren), 461, 478, 481, 483,516; in the A(]irondacks,497 ; at Ripton, 521, 526, 528-534. Vatican, impressions of the, 154. Vermont, visit to bis grandparents in, 14. Vevay, Sunday at, 135. " Vicarious Sacrifice," preparation for, 422, 445, 477; publication of, 488; supplementary volume of, 538, 543. Vigilance Committee of Sau Francisco, 375, 379, 380-384. Virgin Mary, sermon on the, 505. w. War of the Rebellion, interest in the, 473-475 ; visit to the scenes of the, 487. Waramaug Lake, 5, 381, 461. Washington, D. C, letter from, 112. Watch, loss of a, 383. Waterbury, Conn., meeting of General Association at, 305. Water-power of the Connecticut, 183, 319. Water-store of California, 376, 392. "Ways of Prayer," notes on, 524. Weather-house, on a barometric, 494. Webber, Rev. G. N., becomes pastor of North Church, 439 ; resigns, 478. Wengern Alp, 132. West, journey in the, 267. Whipple, E. J., mention of, 247, 303. Wife, dedication of a book to, 503 ; let- ters to, ubique. Willey, Rev. S. II., letter to, 384 ; quoted, 404. Williams College, address at, 504. Willis, N. P., anecdote told by, 45. Winship, Thomas, character of, 290; let- ters to, 360, 394,450, 535, 558. Winthrop, Mr. William, mention of, 429, 430. " Woman Suffrage," book on, 503. Womanhood, remarks on, 139-143, 440. Woods, life in the, 499. " Work and Play," oration on, 198 ; pub- lication of the book, 480. " Taguey Family, Natural History of," 356,491. Yale College, admission to, 22 ; studying at, 35 ; tutorship in, 53-62 ; address- es and sermons at, 58, 107, 199, 263, 485, 504, 505. Young men, sympathy with, 290, 463. z. Zurich, letter from, 127. THE END. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. MAR 13^968 i^ mJ"^ ^ QV ^^i'^^ Form L9-Series 4 1^0'' 2,3^91^ APR 22 1979 3 1158 00327 7646 ^^ BX 7260 B9C5 Kl^'s